


Tasting Menu

by i_love_tofu_so_much



Series: Mise En Place [3]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26277946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_love_tofu_so_much/pseuds/i_love_tofu_so_much
Summary: Tasting Menu: a collection of several dishes in small portions, served by a restaurant as a single meal.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Series: Mise En Place [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888039
Comments: 83
Kudos: 311





	1. Everyday Chocolate Cake

**Author's Note:**

> *this is gonna a compilation of oneshots  
> some may be long, some may be short, i dont really have too much of a plan tbh, but i hope u enjoy nonetheless <3

“Pleeeasseee?”

“ _Christen, I really can’t-_ ”

“Yes you can! You own the freaking restaurant, Sonny. Don’t tell me that you can’t take a few days off.”

Christen can hear a pensive sigh through the phone and it only makes her teeth nervously dig digger into her bottom lip. She’s made a good plan ‒ a great plan in her humble opinion. But it all relies on the availability of one person.

After another heavy sigh and a moment of thought that Christen can physically feel in her chest, she hears, “ _People must not say 'no' to you very often, huh?_ ”

A grin and a wave of relief sweep across Christen's face because those words tell her that she's successfully cracked the southern chef. “Nope. And I'm not accepting any ‘no’s’ today.” she says firmly.

“ _Okay._ ”

“Okay?”

“ _Yeah, I'll play along in this crazy-ass plan of yours._ ” Emily grumbles and Christen all but shoots through the roof with an invigorating amount of excitement. “ _When's my flight?_ ”

Christen squeezes her phone securely between her ear and shoulder, needing both hands to rummage through the paperwork that's laid out in front of her on the coffee table. When she finds the flight details ‒ details that are one, simple click away from being finalized ‒ she answers, “In two days… so Thursday. How’s 2:30 pm sound?”

With another audible sigh, Emily responds, “ _Yeah, sure. That’ll give me the morning to get everything set for when I’m gone, I guess…_ ”

“Yes! Exactly!” Christen gleefully agrees with her mood being the exact opposite of Emily’s right now. “It’s the perfect plan, I swear. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“ _Alright, you already got me roped in, no point in tryin to butter me up or anything. Pun intended._ ” Emily laughs through the phone and while Christen rolls her eyes at the lame joke, the gleaming smile doesn’t falter from her face. “ _How bout you walk me through this apparently ‘perfect’ plan of yours._ ”

Christen takes the next half an hour or so to meticulously explain the masterful scheme that’s been in the works for the last few weeks. 

Tobin and Christen’s one year anniversary is next week and Christen obviously wants to surprise her girlfriend with a gift. It took a lot of thought in the beginning ‒ many hours of online browsing and lists upon lists of possible gift ideas. The problem she's found herself inevitably faced with is the fact that Tobin is absolutely impossible to shop for. She’s truly a gift-giver’s worst enemy. 

Tobin’s not a billionaire by any means, but she’s worked in a couple of upscale restaurants and that's helped take the weight off of the money-related complications of life. Despite never being a head chef at any of those fancy establishments, she’s a dedicated worker nonetheless and she’s been pretty fairly compensated for everything that comes with her services. And although she’s saved up a hefty sum of money, she’s not spending it on yachts or watches or clothes (that’s the reason how she’s saved up that sum of money). She doesn’t need those things because she’s smart with her money. There’s a reason she chose to live in that small apartment in the city because small is all she needs. Tobin’s knife collection is relatively modest because none of it’s for show. The tools she has are the tools that are needed and at the end of the day, they get the job done. This frugal mindset is something she shares in common with Christen and it's just another reason why Christen loves her. They both have the means to live relatively extravagantly, but it's not in their blood to do so. Christen actually admires this even more about Tobin because while she was all but bullied into the lavish house she owns today (one she’s gone to appreciate, especially with Tobin always hanging around) as well as the different designer clothes she buys and the life she lives, Tobin hasn't succumbed to any of that. Tobin lives freely ‒ lives off of her own agenda. And to Christen, that's admirable.

With that said, material gifts are a complete dead-end because if Tobin wants something, it’s usually because she needs it and she’ll just buy it for herself. Her idea of luxurious spending is maybe paying a few extra bucks to get a nicer knife or a new, guilty pleasure apron she finds. Most of her money goes towards work-related items anyway, like cooking supplies or new notebooks when hers runs out of paper. Christen thought of maybe gifting a nice vacation for both of them somewhere, but Tobin’s traveled to so many places, there are only a few square feet on the globe that Tobin hasn’t already stepped on. 

Christen doesn’t trust herself to buy any new cooking tools for Tobin because her knowledge in that area is zero to none and she can’t figure out anywhere Tobin hasn’t already been to for a possible vacation. So this plan she’s made ‒ this _perfect_ plan ‒ is kind of her hail Mary. It’s a desperate attempt to do something for the woman she loves and even though it’s a lot of extra work, she really, really hopes that the end product is going to be worth the trouble. 

What is so much work that she needs to call in a favor from a chef that lives on the other side of the country?

Cake.

Homemade, from scratch, Everyday Chocolate Cake to be specific.

Christen’s done all of the logistical work to get this cake into existence, but it’s a special cake that really does require all of that extra work. This one cake is, in Tobin's words, “the best cake she's ever eaten in her life.” Not the best chocolate cake. Not the best cake eaten from her childhood. But the best cake she's ever eaten in her entire Goddamn _l_ _ife_. It's a Heath delicacy ‒ a special, unique recipe passed down in her family through the years. It’s one of a kind and the last time Tobin’s had the euphoric pleasure of eating this cake was apparently at her tenth birthday party. That birthday party was the last time great-grandma Heath made the renowned Everyday Chocolate Cake and it’s still to this day the last time in history that the cake has been produced successfully. 

The problem ‒ the big, scary, intimidating problem that generations of ambitious Heaths have faced ‒ is that the recipe is nearly impossible to follow. Tobin said it herself, if she were able to decipher the recipe successfully, she'd be featured on "My 600lbs Life" with no regrets and a stomach full of that delicious chocolate cake. Apparently, the original Heath responsible for formulating this cake recipe was an eccentric kind of cook. There's a limited number of clear measurements given ‒ "a pinch of this" and "a bit of that" sort of description. The ingredients are confusingly vague, leaving a lot to interpretation and the overall process seems as though it's an all-day endeavor. And even with years of cooking experience under her belt, none of Tobin's many attempts at baking this cake have ever been able to capture the mouth-watering beauty that this Everyday Chocolate Cake provides.

Christen was able to get the original copy of the recipe from Tobin's mom who admitted herself that she hasn't even tried to produce this infamous cake. She had said that the only person she knew that victoriously baked the cake was her grandmother, who never had the chance to teach her skills to the future generation. The friendly call ended with an unnervingly serious "Good luck, Christen" from Cindy that left Christen with a lot of nervousness and worry. 

_Tobin's worth it_ she reminds herself. _One year of being together and Tobin's worth it all_. That’s the overarching truth that helps push Christen to continue her perfect plan. 

With the recipe in possession, Christen's next order of business was enlisting the help of a capable chef because she knows if Tobin hasn't even been able to successfully create this cake, Christen doesn’t stand a chance without backup. She's barely able to make a grocery store box cake, let alone a whole complex masterpiece of a chocolate cake from scratch. Lindsey was her go-to, with the woman’s educated experience baking French desserts _in_ France, but Christen also needs someone to distract Tobin for potentially the entire day before their actual anniversary so that she can try to craft this cake. Lindsey obviously got on board to handle the task with the promise that Tobin will be sufficiently occupied with the food truck for the day. The next option was logically Emily. The issue there is that Emily owns and operates her own restaurant in Georgia. The chef only takes a few weeks off at a time to help out at the food truck but she understandably prioritizes her own business. 

But with Emily now (reluctantly) on board as well, Christen's entire plan is a-go. The day before their anniversary, she'll sneak Emily in after Tobin leaves for the food truck. Lindsey will unsuspectingly make sure that Tobin's busy for the day while Emily and Christen will work on the cake for their anniversary the next day. 

It’s methodical. It's well planned. It's perfect.

~~~

**T-minus 12 hours**

“Chris, this might as well be hieroglyphics because it’s completely unintelligible.” Emily says after reading through (or more accurately trying to decode) the recipe that Christen printed out. 

It’s early afternoon in Christen’s kitchen and the plan has been perfectly executed so far. Tobin made them french toast for breakfast and left with a kiss and not an ounce of suspicion in her body. Christen had Emily park a few blocks down the street and when it was clear, Emily sneaked in through the backyard door. 

Now the two are all set to start the impossible task of baking this cake, but with a blank grocery list in need of any guess for ingredients, Emily’s utterance is the last thing Christen wants to hear. 

“Don’t say that, Em.” she says persistently, taking the recipe to try and help translate the words. “See here, I think it says… cocoa powder?” 

Emily just rolls her eyes. “Wow, a chocolate cake with cocoa powder? Super helpful.” she deadpans. She looks back at the scribbly writing to further analyze what letters the different curves could possibly be forming. “But what kind of cocoa powder? Are we doin natural or dutch processed or maybe a mix of some sort? What kind of flour are we using? Where are the fats comin from? Don’t even get me started on this caramel frosting recipe that literally looks just as complex a process as the cake itself.” 

All these questions spewing out of Emily’s mouth start swarming in Christen’s already confused mind and it makes the room feel a bit stuffier and the air in her lungs feel a bit tighter. Baking isn’t even Emily’s specialty, but she knows that attempting this by herself would be a doomed process from the start. 

“Okay, okay. Let’s just stick with cake for right now.” Christen declares. “How about we make some educated guesses and kinda make needed adjustments as we go. We can try to use this recipe as more of a template or a guideline.”

An uneasy expression grows on Emily’s face as she considers this risky method of operation. “I don’t know, Chris. If this cake is as wild as I’ve heard Tobs describe it, I think we gotta try to stick to the recipe as best we can.”

“I get that, but it could take days just to figure out the ingredients list for this thing and we don’t have that sort of time.” Christen sighs, feeling like her foot that’s been nervously tapping against the floor is about to completely fall off.

“Okay.” Emily says as she straightens her spine and clears her throat. “Get that pen ready, I’ll try and read off whatever the fuck this calls thing for.”

~~~

**T-minus 11 hours**

Christen spent _a lot_ of money. She never really thought she would ever do that at a grocery store (to be fair, she doesn’t really shop for food too often because most of the time, Tobin plans out meals and shops for the makings herself). 

But Christen spent much more than she was originally anticipating because she wanted options and flexibility to compensate for all the uncertainty surrounding this recipe. They aren’t sure the exact type of flour used, so why not just grab three different kinds. Don’t know what kind of fats are in there? They probably looked like serial killers walking out with a cart full of vegetable oil and mayonnaise and bricks of butter and (to Christen’s disgust) some lard for experimental purposes. 

When they get back to the house and unload the bags upon bags upon bags of ingredients, it takes them a while to neatly layout everything on the counters. Getting to visually see all of the items, while a bit intimidating, actual seems to invigorate both of them.

And Emily voices their thoughts out when she says, "Flour, cocoa, sugar, fat? How hard could this really be?"

~~~

**T-minus 10 hours**

“Christen! What are you doing!” Emily yells, dropping the spatula she was holding and rushing over to where Christen is standing innocently next to the stand mixer.

A confused look morphs onto Christen's face and she puts down the bowl of sugar she was pouring into the mixing bowl. 

"W-what?" she asks with complete purity and puzzlement.

Emily takes the little bowl of white granules out of Christen's hands. "That's salt, not sugar." she informs.

"No." Christen protests with pinched, certain eyebrows. "Salt is, like… _smaller_. Smaller little bits. This is white sugar that I just measured out."

" _No_. Who's the chef here Chris? Just taste it if you don't believe me." Emily prompts with a challenging smirk and a glimmer in her eye.

Obviously, Christen's competitive nature leads her to stubbornly wet the top of her pinky finger and sticks it almost defiantly into the pile of the unidentifiable ingredient. Then, with the utmost confidence and a presumptuous amount of white covering her pinky, she takes an assured taste. And she doesn't give away anything ‒ not an eye twitch, not a shift in her firm, set lips. A completely uninformative poker face.

But nothing in her stone-cold exterior can deny the foul, saltiness resting on her tongue. The facade cracks in a second with a disgusted, scrunched up face and her tongue shooting out of her mouth as if pushing the taste as far away as possible will somehow purify her senses. She rushes over to the sink to spit out as much of the contaminated saliva out as possible before grasping the faucet head and letting cold tap water cleanse her tongue.

"Hmph…" is all Emily gives before going to the bag of granulated sugar with a measuring cup in hand.

~~~

**T-minus 8 hours**

“Shit! It’s hardening! EM! IT'S HARDENING!” Christen yells as she tries to smear on the caramel frosting that’s quickly becoming a shell encompassing their chocolate cake. 

“More cream!” Emily yells back with an unnecessarily high volume of voice that only makes the situation feel more hectic and uncontrollable. She rushes over with a measuring cup of cream, half of the contents spilling over the sides with the speed she’s moving at. With crusty frosting all over Christen’s hands and arms, she continues to try and smooth out the surface of the cake, but it’s nearly impossible with how sticky the frosting is and how quickly it’s setting. 

Emily’s trying to mix in more cream to the bowl of frosting but with a defeated sigh, Christen drops the offset spatula with a loud clank onto the kitchen countertop. 

“It’s no use Em. It’s covered and hardened and there’s nothing we can do about it now.” she says, backing away from their third failed attempt of the day. 

Emily lets out a puffer fish exhale, stopping her mixing actions and admitting defeat. 

The cake before them looks like a monster. It looks like a Frankenstein cake that’s been dropped from the top of the Eiffel Tower and then run over by a speeding car and then clobbered on by a pack of horses. It looks awful but despite its unappealing appearance, Emily says, “Might as well taste it right?”

Christen can only nod. Even if it's the ugliest cake in existence, it’s really all about taste right? As long as they have the ingredients and the process in the bag, they can focus on refining the whole frosting part.

She opens a drawer and pulls out two forks, handing one to Emily and turning back to their sloppy-joe looking cake. And just as Christen’s about to use the side of her fork to cut through the cake, the entire thing collapses onto itself like it’s suddenly made of loose sand. The hardened frosting doesn’t even aid its structural integrity as the caramel simply cracks along with the falling piece of chocolate cake. 

“Well, that’s not a good sign.” Emily remarks, putting down her fork because now there’s _another_ thing wrong with how they assembled this cake. 

Christen just huffs out a frustrated and exhausted breath as she promptly turns her fork and angrily sticks it upright into the pile of whatever chocolate-caramel-sugary-cake-ish thing they just created.

~~~

**T-minus 5 hours**

The kitchen's a mess. Christen and Emily's clothes are a mess. Their mental states are a mess. And they're currently resting their lifeless, limp bodies across the sliver of counter space available because this recipe has really proven to be _that_ hard. 

"You jinxed it." Christen mutters, her head resting against the cool surface of the marble countertop and her eyes shut because opening them is too challenging a task. 

"What?"

"You jinxed it, Son." she repeats. "You said, and I quote, 'how hard could this really be?'." Christen throws her exhausted body away from the counter with the hope that her spine will somehow keep her upright. She brushes a bit of flour off of her shirt as she says, "Athletes are usually pretty superstitious and I've never really been that type of person. But you definitely jinxed this."

Emily follows suit, lifting herself off the counter like she's a marionette puppet being slowly pulled by ropes. Before some weakly thought up, witty remark can make its way out of her gradually opening mouth, a piercing ring echoes in the room.

Christen reaches into the front pouch of her apron to answer her phone.

"Hi Linds." she mutters in a tone that resembles that of a literal zombie. "How's operation 'distract Tobin' going? Please tell me it's easier than baking this damn cake."

" _Super easy, as suspected. We got everything up and running this morning but get this, she literally has a jam-packed schedule for the truck today_." Lindsey reports cheerfully over the phone, her current demeanor a stark contrast to Christen's but it's somewhat refreshing.

Now more perked up, Christen asks, "What do you mean? What is she doing today?"

" _I'm the only one working the truck right now cause Tobs has a bunch of like, boring obligations for today. She has to get our ingredients from a chef friend of hers in the city and then she's got loads of administrative stuff with permits and business-y chores while she's down there. My job's basically done for me_."

"Wow, so she's just swamped all day?" 

" _More than swamped, literally flooded, Chris_ ." At these words, Christen feels relief pour into her body. To make matters even better, Lindsey then informs, " _And get this, to make up for the fact that I'll have to run the truck by myself, which isn't that big of a deal cause we parked at a low traffic spot for today, she promised me that she'd come back and close up tonight! So you got at least an extra hour or two to finish operation ‘baking cake’! AND I can come by and help with the finishing touches if you still need it_."

"Oh, we'll definitely need it." Christen immediately says, flashbacks of the last few hours of absolute chaos filling her mind. "This is such a relief, you have no idea. Thank you so much Linds!"

" _Don't thank me, thank the lame city people for having Tobs running around trying to get everything done today. I wouldn’t be surprised if she walked in on the whole cake plan and didn’t even process what you’re doing with how brain-dead she’s gonna be at the end of the day_.”

Christen chuckles as much as her sluggish body will currently allow. "So we’ll see you around…"

" _Seven?_ "

"Seven." Christen confirms, a slightly revived smile on her face. "See ya then."

~~~

**T-minus 3 hours**

“Honey! I’m home!” Lindsey shouts as she marches through the front door. Without a response (but not _really_ expecting one), she rounds the corner into the kitchen to see what kind of situation she’s going to be presented with. 

Honestly, it looks like a tornado ran through the kitchen with the piles of dirty dishes and randomly spilled ingredients covering the countertops. It doesn’t surprise her. She’d expect nothing less from her psycho best friend and an innocently uneducated novice chef. But she also doesn’t see her psycho best friend and the novice chef anywhere among the remnants of chaos in the kitchen. 

“Sonny? Chris?” she calls out, wandering around the space and half-expecting them to be hidden under perhaps the mountain of flour or the pool of cracked eggs. She’s covered the area and has yet to see the two other women until she finally catches the sight of a limp hand protruding off of the couch. Lindsey walks into the living room and she can’t help but chuckle when she finally sees Christen and Emily both out cold ‒ Christen snuggled practically in the cushions of the couch and Emily laying like a dead body on the carpet floor. If Lindsey had to guess from the messy flour streaks across their faces and the dark, heavy bags under their eyes, she'd say that they've been going at operation ‘baking cake’ for at least eight hours.

With a heavy sigh, Lindsey shrugs her jacket off and places it gently onto one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. 

She'll try to be quiet ‒ her two friends have definitely had a _day_. But she also hasn't gotten a chance to see this supposed "impossible cake recipe". She makes her way around the edge of the counter, eyeing a piece of paper in the middle of the mess that's almost entirely covered in spilled cocoa powder. After picking it up and picking off some mysterious crud that's dried onto the paper, she knows that this must be the photocopied print of the recipe.

And then Lindsey rolls up her sleeves and gets to work.

~~~

When Christen wakes up, she feels the familiar silkiness of her bedsheets, not the worn leather of her sofa cushions like she had remembered as she drifted off to slumberville last night. 

An unfamiliarity though is the lack of body heat that usually resides right next to her during these early hours of the day. Usually, said body heat would be securely wrapped around her, inviting an unprecedented amount of warmth and comfort and safety and-

" _Oh fuck! Cake! Anniversary! Tobin! FUCK!"_

Christen can't help the quiet but nonetheless completely panicked exclamations that fall from her breath. She springs upwards from where she was laying down and she’s about to rush downstairs to the kitchen and… and…

Well, she doesn't know what she's planning on doing ‒ what she _can_ do at this point. But the second before her feet touch the hardwood floor she hears,

"Hey baby, glad to see you're up!"

She looks behind her shoulder and Tobin's there, already dressed in black skinny jeans and an LAFC t-shirt and a wide smile and bright eyes and a tray covered with different wonderful-smelling foods. 

Christen’s completely confused and she doesn’t remember cleaning up the bombsite that was the kitchen last night which means Tobin’s definitely seen it and her perfect plan has failed…

But instead, the words she’s somehow able to say in a convincingly calm and cheery voice is, “Good morning! You look like you’ve been up for a while!”

“Yeah, I got up a little early to make this…” Tobin singsongs, unhinging the little plastic legs from beneath the tray to set the entire arrangement down softly onto the fluffy comforter of the bed. She then leans over and gives Christen a short, sweet kiss before muttering against her lips, “Happy anniversary, baby. I love you,”

A smile grows on Christen’s face and she presses their lips together once more for a longer, but still sweet kiss. “I love you too. Happy anniversary and thank you for this spectacular breakfast in bed.”

With a final peck, Tobin leans back to let her girlfriend start on whichever dish she wants first. “Not to brag or anything, but it tastes better than it looks. Trust me.” she says with a wink. 

“I have no doubt that it does.” Christen responds, obviously going straight for the chocolate chip pancakes that are still steaming with fresh warmth ‒ a melting pad of golden butter resting on top. As she pours a very generous amount of maple syrup on the stack, she asks in the most unsuspicious way possible, “You… you made this in the kitchen downstairs?” There’s no way anybody would even be able to toast a slice of bread with how horribly messy the kitchen was left last night. 

Tobin chuckles a bit questioningly ‒ slightly confused eyebrows pinched together ‒ but after popping a blueberry in her mouth from one of the fruit cups, she answers “No, I did it all in the truck’s tiny-ass kitchen- _yes_ I cooked everything in the kitchen downstairs…” She ends her sentence with a confused tone that only sends more confusion to spiral around Christen’s mind. 

“Why do you ask? Do you secretly have an even better kitchen in this house that you’ve been keeping from me?” Tobin teases with squinted, playful, but still questioning eyes.

“No, no, I just-”

Christen’s phone dings with a new text notification before she can bullshit some excuse. 

_Saved by the bell sound of a text…_ she thinks to herself. “Hold that thought.” she says as she leans over to the nightstand to grab her phone. When she unlocks it, she sees one long message from Lindsey as well as a shorter one, the one she just received, from Emily.

**[Lindsey — 21:44]**

**Hey Chris! So you and Em were pretty much**

**passed out when I came over, so i just went**

**ahead and made the cake. Idk y u guys were so**

**overwhelmed, it seemed pretty straight forward**

**to me. Anyway, it’s late and im gonna head out**

**before Tobs gets back and spots me, but i hid**

**it in the outside fridge on a glass cake stand i**

**found.**

**And also I cleaned up ur guys’ mess in the**

**kitchen, so… ur welcome. Have fun tomorrow!**

**You don’t have to tell me any details cause I**

**know that Tobs is gonna be nonstop talking**

**about it at work haha. Love ya!**

What’s up?” Tobin asks and Christen looks over to see her curious girlfriend and half of the pancakes already gone. 

“Tobs!” Christen chastises, her eyes looking down at the few pancakes left that are soaking up the surrounding pool of maple syrup. 

“Hey, you’re the one that’s looking at your phone and not paying attention to _mmeeee_ ,” Tobin responds with glossy, pouty lips and adorable puppy-dog eyes. 

And Christen would be a damn fool if she didn’t lean in to give an apologetic kiss to her girlfriend’s maple syrup lips. They chuckle a bit in the kiss before Christen pulls away to read off the text that Emily just sent her.

“ ‘Before Linds can snitch on me, tell Tobin that I really did try to get to the truck on time!’ ” she recites and Tobin just laughs at how unsurprisingly “Sonnett-y” that text is. 

“This is why I left Lindsey in charge of the truck today. Thank god for Lindsey...” Tobin says, backing off the pancakes in favor of starting on the wedges of seasoned roasted potatoes. 

Christen puts down her phone, her undivided attention now fully on her girlfriend. “Yeah,” she says, grabbing the container of ketchup to drizzle onto the crispy plate of hash browns. “Thank god for Lindsey…”

~~~

They have a fantastic day, but that’s really not a surprise. They spent the morning eating the beautiful array of breakfast items that Tobin had prepared while talking about nothing too important and sharing numerous spontaneous kisses in the middle of sentences and words. Afterward, the two take a lovely morning walk around Christen’s neighborhood. Christen’s never been one to simply stroll for the sake of strolling, but doing so with Tobin by her side has made the experience so much more pleasant. Tobin makes enormous burgers for lunch and packs them with some other snacks into a picnic basket while Christen compiles their usual beach items and loads them into the car. (And she quickly sneaks to the outside fridge and it feels like an anvil has been lifted from her chest when she sees a perfectly displayed, perfectly gorgeous cake resting inside. She only hopes that it tastes as good as it looks but knowing Lindsey, it probably tastes better.)

They spend their afternoon lounging at the beach. Tobin alternates from going out and catching a few waves with her surfboard to tanning beside Christen on the shore. They eat their burgers ‒ still wonderfully delicious despite spending some time in a cramped, woven basket. Fresh fruit and cans of La Croix are shared between them and together, they peacefully soak up the rays of the sun for as much of the day as the sun allows for.

After heading back and showering and cleaning up, they go to a fancy restaurant (where Tobin had shamelessly called in a favor for the VIP treatment) and they eat ridiculously expensive food that happens to be on the house and they drink ridiculously expensive wine that's also conveniently on the house. And they take the time after finishing the perfectly cooked tri-tip to exchange little gifts for one another across the table. Christen is through the roof when she reads the printed receipt for a relaxing, romantic getaway for the two of them in beautiful Bermuda. And Tobin is a beaming fool when she opens the box that holds a gold Cartier ring ‒ a promise ring ‒ that symbolizes love. And that’s all that fills their hearts and their minds and their bodies. 

Love.

~~~

“I have one more surprise for you.” Christen says, vibrating with excitement at what she knows is waiting for them in the outside fridge. The two are snuggled up together on the couch now, some tv show playing that Christen really, really wanted to catch the tail-end of when they got back from dinner. 

“Hmmm?” Tobin hums with intrigue, angling her head down to look at Christen's wide, watchful eyes. “Well, what if I told you that I have another surprise too.” 

“Do you actually?” Christen asks as she sits up a bit. 

Tobin just nods adorably with a grin. “I’ll go grab mine if you wanna grab yours.” she proposes. 

Christen’s smile widens and she doesn’t hesitate to rush off of the couch and scurry straight to the outside fridge. When she looks over her shoulder on the way there, she curiously sees Tobin heading in the opposite direction towards the front door.

_Where is she going?_

She gets to the fridge, whipping it open to reveal the glorious chocolate cake still sitting elegantly on the clear glass stand and shielded with a glass dome. Carefully, she picks up the heavy mass with two sturdy hands before turning away and kicking the refrigerator door shut with the back of her foot. At a much slower pace than before, Christen makes her way back into the house and towards the kitchen, flicking the overhead lights on to really display the cake in all its glory. Sure, she wasn’t the one who actually made it, but at the end of the day, the two women are going to be eating a delicious cake anyway.

She hears the front door start to open and before Tobin can come in and see the surprise, Christen moves in front of the cake to hide it from sight. 

Tobin must have had the same idea because she walks in with both her arms obviously holding something behind her back. 

The two are at a standoff of sorts. Both are extremely excited for the surprise they're about to give and extremely curious as to what the other person’s surprise is. 

With that energy running through their bodies, Tobin finally says, “On the count of three?”

And Christen nods, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip with anticipation. 

“One…”

Christen raises her foot in preparation to move her body to the side.

“Two…”

Tobin lifts her arms a little to bring whatever she’s holding out into the open.

“Three!”

Christen moves completely out of the way at the same time that Tobin reveals whatever she’s holding into sight. 

Christen can’t believe it ‒ she really can’t. She thinks her brain is short-circuiting or maybe her eyes are playing tricks on her. Maybe this is some weird optical illusion brought on by how stressful yesterday's endeavors were. 

But it’s real. It’s here. There are really two identical chocolate cakes with identical caramel frosting exteriors both… _existing_ right here. One’s resting on a glass pedestal in a glass dome and the other is in a large, plastic tupperware container between Tobin’s hands. 

Tobin looks as shocked and perplexed as Christen does when she sees the cake that’s been revealed on the kitchen counter. 

“H-how…” she sputters out. It seems like her brain is also short-circuiting. Tobin slowly approaches Christen’s cake like it’s some sort of artifact or a magical object that shouldn’t be here. She’s half right though. It shouldn't be here. How is another cake here?

She puts her own cake down next to the other one and they look like mirror images of one another. Christen then walks over and the two women look upon the two cakes with completely dumbfounded expressions. 

“Is that-”

“Yes.” Christen confirms, knowing exactly what Tobin was going to ask because it’s the same question she was about to ask. “Everyday Chocolate Cake. A Heath family recipe”

And after a few long moments of confused silence, they both erupt into hysterical laughter at the same time. They can’t help it. It’s too good not to laugh. 

“How- how did you do it?” Tobin asks when she’s calmed down enough from her fit of laughter. 

Christen has to wipe the joyful tear that’s fallen from her eye before she can speak. “I snuck Emily in a day earlier than we told you and we spent the entire day yesterday trying to bake this cake.” she explains. “And we never got it. But Lindsey came to help and Em and I were both asleep and she was able to somehow do it. I was gonna ask her how tomorrow but she’s actually the one who ended up baking it. Hopefully it's right.”

“I’m sure it’s spot on. It is Lindsey Horan, after all.” Tobin adds. 

“And how the hell did you do it? You said you’ve tried so many times and… and Linds said you were crazy busy yesterday.” 

A wide smile tugs on Tobin’s lips as she explains, “I just told her that as a cover.” She takes the glass lid off of Christen’s cake as well as the hard plastic covering on her own. “I told her that I had to get something from a chef in town, but actually, she was letting me use the kitchen at her restaurant to try and whip up this cake for us. And then I drove the food truck over here to keep the cake in its fridge.”

“And you got it.” Christen says, seeing what Tobin’s doing and taking it upon herself to open the cupboards and grab some plates and forks. 

“And I got it.” Tobin confirms as she opens the drawer and takes the cake knife out. “Not without a good amount of failed cakes, but yeah. I finally got it.”

Then, Christen offers an empty plate up and without hesitation, Tobin swiftly cuts into the cake she had so proudly made and slices off a nice piece to plop onto the plate. When Christen brings the other plate up, Tobin switches to Christen's cake (or more accurately, Lindsey’s cake), and serves a piece from that cake. And with forks in hand and a slice of the other person’s cake in front of them, they can’t help but take a moment to smile lovingly at one another, still chuckling at how _gold_ this situation they’re in truly is. 

“Happy anniversary, Tobin.”

Christen cuts off a bite with her fork ‒ making sure to get equal parts fluffy chocolate cake and flavorful caramel frosting ‒ before piercing it and bringing the piece up between them. Tobin follows suit, using the side of her fork to hunk off a piece from the tip of the slice and holding it up for a ceremonial clicking. 

“Happy anniversary, love.”

And the second that chocolate crumb touches her taste buds, Christen can already tell that this cake is the best cake she's ever eaten in her life. And her perfect plan didn't exactly go as... planned. But here she is with two perfectly made Everyday Chocolate Cakes that will last them at least a couple of months and she gets to share them with the absolute love of her life ‒ so Christen's definitely not complaining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by the real life Everyday Chocolate Cake that my family (or more accurately, my mom hehe) makes for me every year on my birthday. it really is super challenging to make but its fantastic and im not really a sugary dessert type person, i dont have a sweet tooth at all, but the cake really is, no joke, the best cake ive ever eaten in my life


	2. Chocolate Toffee Cookies

She knew right away. That might have been a good thing or a bad thing, she's not sure. But the second she pivoted and that defender slid at her from an adjacent angle, cleats baring upwards, and she felt that all too familiar impact against her knee…

Christen knew right away that the cartilage was torn. And she knows what her doctor will say ‒ " _a grade 3 meniscus tear_ ". She knows how the surgery procedure goes and how long physical therapy lasts and what time of the day she's supposed to take the medication. Unfortunately, she also knows that recovery is usually harder with re-injuries. She knows all this because the exact same injury happened to her almost a year ago and it caused her to have to miss a lot of valuable time with the national team and her club team. It's hard and frustrating and damaging both physically and emotionally. A year ago, her injury sent her to a pretty dark place that she had to crawl tooth and nail to escape in order to get to where she is ‒ or technically _was_.

But a year ago, she didn't have Tobin.

~~~

"Babe, the cookies are done!" Christen hears from downstairs as she finishes slipping the tight brace snug around her knee. She pushes herself up and habitually reaches for her crutches, only to remember that she had somehow left them downstairs.

_God damn it…_

With a groan and zero fucks to give, she slowly stands up onto one leg and starts hopping towards Tobin's voice. Having to go crutch-less isn't that big of a deal at this point, but it's always annoying. Christen hobbles to the top of the stairs, gripping tightly to the railing as she moves down one step at a time. She goes at a slow, safe place because the first time she got injured, she tried to go down too quickly and wound up slipping and bruising her ankle. Come to find out her oh so perfect house isn't very perfect for injured cripples. But she's learned from her first round of mistakes and that reminder that she's right back to the "injured players" list makes Christen clench her jaw in anger.

Tobin glances up when she hears footsteps slowly thumping against the tile stairs and she sighs when she sees that Christen is quietly limping down a flight of stairs ‒ her eyebrows lowered and her bottom lip bitten down in focus ‒ with no crutches and no request for help. Dropping the oven mitt in hand, Tobin quickly jogs over to shift her shoulders underneath Christen's arm for support. She brings her arm to anchor around Christen's waist as the two make their way into the living room. 

No words are said ‒ no "thank you” or "let me help you" ‒ and that’s just something the two have grown to accept. It’s a delicate situation and Tobin knows that it’s especially hard for Christen with having the same injury a second time around. So she doesn’t need a thank you, she’s just here to help in any way she can. 

When it happened, Tobin had been watching from the stands. She’d seen the gut-wrenching pain wash over Christen’s face and it was one of the hardest things Tobin has ever had to witness ‒ especially from afar without the ability to run over and comfort her girlfriend's curled up body on the pitch. 

Christen has gone through the motions of the doctor visits and possible surgery and everything that comes with having a serious injury, but Tobin hasn’t. In Tobin’s past line of work as a personal chef for athletes, injuries and previous injuries were aspects that she’d always review but never really needed to focus on ‒ that’s a job for the athletes’ physical therapist and athletic trainer and doctor. Tobin would cook nourishing food that helped aid recovery and always be an attentive listener at all times, but a client's history with injury was never something she specifically addressed. 

But not this time. Not when it’s her girlfriend. Not when it’s Christen.

Ever since the incident, Tobin has accompanied Christen to every doctor’s appointment, every physical therapy session, and every possible minute of every day. The National team had some games scheduled that subsequently paved the plan for another trip with To’binz Po’boyz, but with those games off the table, Tobin immediately canceled any and all food truck trips without a second thought. She has also taken a considerable amount of time off from working the truck in favor of spending every possible minute of every day next to Christen’s side. Thankfully, Emily has been impressively flexible by staying at Lindsey’s apartment and running the truck, but everybody is wordlessly aware that it can’t last forever. Neither Emily nor Lindsey has asked or pushed Tobin about when she’s coming back to work because they know it really comes down to what amount of progress is made with Christen’s injury. 

So they don’t ask and they don’t push. They just work and try to support their friends. 

Christen feels guilty, no matter how many times Tobin tells her not to. But she feels guilty for being the reason why the three adventurous chefs aren’t going out and exploring the cuisine of the country. All because of her injury. It’s part of the reason why Christen doesn’t like asking for any help whatsoever (though, that’s also just a characteristic of her personality to an extent). But because she already feels like she’s somewhat of a burden, she doesn’t want Tobin to feel immensely obligated to assist her in the basic functions that she wishes she was able to do. She has a feeling that Tobin understands this due to the lack of questioning, but she just doesn’t bring attention to it, which Christen appreciates. 

Once Christen is laid down comfortably (sort of) on the couch, Tobin leaves a kiss to her forehead before swiftly grabbing the plate of freshly baked chocolate toffee cookies and sitting on the living room table to offer them. Christen gives a soft smile ‒ the slightest curve of her lips ‒ that doesn’t quite reach her eyes as she takes one of the warm cookies. But Tobin keeps holding the plate up like she knows exactly what’s going through Christen's head and they can’t help but chuckle lightly when she gives in and grabs a second cookie. 

Tobin kisses her forehead softly again as she whispers against her skin, “I love you”. 

It’s a statement that’s said a lot more frequently between the two of them. Since the first time they had told each other those three powerful words, it easily became integrated into their lives ‒ whether it be a quick “love ya” at the end of a call or a deliberate and meaningful “I love you” after being reunited with one another. It so easily became normal between the two like there’s no truer truth in the world. 

But “I love yous” are exchanged now more than ever, mainly on Tobin’s end, and Christen knows it’s part of her girlfriend’s way of processing it all ‒ of staying present ‒ and to care for Christen with something other than cooking food and acting as a pseudo crutch.

“I love you, too” Christen responds with a swelling heart as she takes a bite of the gooey, rich cookie, the sweetness and warmth practically melting in her mouth. Tobin stands up and makes her way back to the kitchen, setting the plate of cookies down on the counter before beginning to clean the mixer and bowls. As she munches on her cookies, Christen peers over the back of the couch (as much as her current position allows) to watch Tobin busily working in the kitchen. It’s a sight Christen is very familiar with ‒ Tobin in an apron in the kitchen after cooking her something ‒ but it never fails to captivate her attention. Seeing Tobin in her complete element is a sight that Christen won’t ever take for granted. 

“Hey, so some of your teammates hit me up about maybe getting dinner with you and me tonight,” Tobin mentions, finishing drying a bowl and looking to see Christen’s eyes over the couch. 

“Yeah? That’s cool.”

“Yeah…” Tobin clears her throat before carefully adding, “But I guess I was just a little surprised that they asked _me_ about hanging out with _you_.”

It's not a question but Christen knows exactly what Tobin’s asking with that comment. Her stubborn self has her body slumping back down against the armrest of the couch as she casually replies, “Well you said that they want to get dinner with both of us so…”

With a sigh, Tobin walks over to where her girlfriend has seemingly hidden herself behind the couch. She knows that if she wants Christen to address this, she’s going to have to pry it out of her and be as direct as possible. When she reaches the front of the couch and sees how Christen has practically tried to bury herself into the cushions, she delicately lifts the woman’s legs to slip underneath them and take a seat. With Christen’s legs resting on her lap, she gently rubs soothing patterns over the expanse of tan skin (minding the knee brace) in hopes of coaxing her girlfriend into opening up a little. 

“They said they’ve been trying to reach you, but you haven’t been responding. I think they just invited me along because they had to ask through me in the first place.” Tobin starts in full honesty, looking at how Christen is trying to avoid eye contact at all costs. But there’s only so much to look at in the minimal, modern living room. So Tobin is patient and eventually, stubborn green eyes connect with her tender hazel eyes. 

Christen gives in with a sigh ‒ how could she not with Tobin’s loving gaze just pleading for an ounce of sincerity. “I just don’t feel like hanging out with the girls right now.”

“Why?”

“Cause I’m just not in the mood.”

“You love the team and you know they just want to get to see you again-”

“I don’t want them to see me like this!” Christen finally admits in a rushed breath and a raised voice. But it doesn’t faze Tobin as she continues to look at her with a calm, questioning expression.

The first time it happened ‒ the first time Christen had to face an injury of this severity and sit out of numerous playing opportunities ‒ most of her frustrations stemmed from feeling like she was being pitied by everyone, especially her teammates. They would deny it of course, but Christen always saw it in their eyes when they’d look at her limping around the pitch or watching practice and games from a distance. Anyone who has ever seen Christen with a ball at her feet knows the love and passion and drive she has for her sport. Her search for perfection in the game is the main reason why she was awarded the MVP title at the end of the season and why she’s considered one of the best footballers in the world. To have that stripped from her and removing her from playing instantaneously lowers the caliber of play for any game. 

With a sigh that she hopes calms her enough to not break down right now ‒ not in her living room with her girlfriend before noon ‒ Christen allows for her heart to take the reins of her words. “I’m holding on. I’m holding it together.” she states but the frailness of her voice makes it seem as though she’s still trying to convince herself of this. “They’ve seen it all the first time around, I don’t want them to have to see it again a second time.”

“But they’re here to support you, babe.” Tobin says as she gently squeezes Christen’s unbraced knee. “On and off the field, they’re your teammates and they _want_ to be there for you. You know I won’t pressure you to say yes or no, but I really think having a nice dinner at a nice restaurant could be fun, especially if Sydney gets some wine in her system.”

Christen can’t help but chuckle, letting the idea mewling around in her head as her hesitations begin to fade. _A wine drunk Syd is definitely a sight to be seen..._

“Plus, aren’t you sick of my cooking at this point?” Tobin adds with a grin and a playful wink. 

“Hmmm never.” Christen says, sporting a grin to match. She leans up to wrap her arms around Tobin’s shoulders and slowly guides their bodies back down against the couch with a secure kiss. “I’ll never get sick of your food, not in a million years.” 

With their bodies now almost flush together, Tobin lets her hands graze the sides of Christen’s abdomen. “ ‘A million years’? Very presumptuous of you, Mrs. Press.” she teases as her fingertips creep underneath Christen’s sweatshirt. She lifts her leg carefully across Christen’s legs, mindful of the injured knee as she straddles her girlfriend against the couch. 

“You call it presumptuous, I call it confidence.” Christen retorts, leaning her head up for what Tobin thinks will be a kiss but instead, Christen traps her bottom lip between her teeth for a light, teasing tug. 

Tobin groans as pain mixes with pleasure and her fingers become more adventurous with the warm, bare skin under her touch. She can taste on her own lips the rich combination of chocolate and toffee from Christen's tongue and it makes Tobin's heart start to beat against her chest. “Confidence is _very_ sexy on you.” she mutters as she slowly dips her head to leave a trail of small kisses down the column of Christen's giggling neck. 

By the time they're done with their activities on the couch, Christen has a very different reason as to why she has a bit of a stagger in her step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by the fact that i had actually cut this piece from the original Mise story but i still wanted to do something w it. maybe ill add a second part to this topic but for now, i just wanted to release somethin for yall (btw these oneshots wont all just be dessert haha)


	3. "Mac" and Cheese

Tobin doesn’t drink that much. 

She doesn’t have any crazy, “I was so shitfaced” stories that people like to flaunt for some reason (or in Christen’s case, embarrassingly admit with a blush). Tobin typically stops her alcohol consumption when she’s feeling that comfortable but mild buzzed feeling and then she’ll sip on some sparkling water until it wears off. She says it’s because she’s always had obligations in the early mornings ‒ needing to be across town to pick up some ingredients, getting up at the crack of dawn for the opening shift ‒ so dealing with a monster headache and light sensitivity and acute nausea never seemed worth it. She also reasons that skipping out on _the_ classic college experience in favor of building her work experience probably has something to do with her innate sobriety as well. 

And Christen understands and she doesn’t judge at all ‒ she’s not really a big drinker either. She knows that you obviously don’t have to drink a single sip of alcohol to have a good time. But it is a little quirk that she likes to poke at sometimes. 

“So have you ever even been drunk before?” she asks one night while the two are out getting a late dinner at Tobin’s favorite sushi restaurant. 

With a mouth full of tempura, Tobin stops chewing for a second to give a “is that really a question?” look. 

“What? I’ve never seen it!” Christen exclaims as she picks up her Kikusui sake and teasingly clinks it with Tobin’s glass of water. After a defiant and refreshing sip, she adds, “What can I say, I’m a skeptic. If I haven’t seen it with my own two eyes, how can I know if it’s real?”

“Are you saying that you don’t believe in the invisible force known as _gravity_?” Tobin prompts after swallowing her food. 

Now Christen’s the one with a “is that really a question” look before she says, “I’ve seen things fall, _Tobin_. That’s proof enough for me.”

“Hmmm…” Tobin hums as she wipes her mouth with the napkin from her lap and Christen can tell that another playful, Tobin-like quip is coming her way. “Have you seen the Earth with your ‘own two eyes’, _Christen_? Do you know if it’s round or flat or… a cube or something?”

“Are you saying that you believe the earth is round?”  
  
“Are you answering my question with a question because you know I gotcha beat?”

“Are you saying that you believe the earth is a cube?”

“Is this you admitting defeat?”

They smirk at each other, waiting for the other one to break this standoff going on. And thankfully for both of their egos, neither of them has to give in because the server comes by to interrupt with a pitcher to refill Tobin’s water. It seems to mutually settle the two enough to settle back to their date night. 

“But really,” Christen says after a minute. “The only time I’ve seen you drink anything other than one glass of wine is that night at the club where you only had a couple vodka sodas.”

“Well, what if I told you that I wanted to stay sober and aware because I knew I was gonna kiss you and I wanted to remember every detail possible.” Tobin responds with a charming smile and Christen almost wants to roll her eyes except she knows that Tobin means every damn word. 

_Only Tobin could go from accusing me of being a flat-earther to being ridiculously romantic in the blink of an eye..._ she thinks to herself as she stares into the soft and genuine hazel eyes across from her. 

“I’d say that I love you.” Christen simply states and it’d only seem fair to seal her words with a quick kiss to the woman’s lips. 

When she pulls back, Tobin’s eyes are closed with a big, goofy, recently-kissed grin on her face. She opens her eyes and dreamily mutters, “Works for me.”

~~~

Tobin doesn’t drink that much.

But right now, she’s _pretty_ drunk.

“You okay, babe?” Christen asks as she makes her way back around the couch and plops down next to her very, very delirious girlfriend. She feels bad ‒ feels like maybe if she hadn’t brought up Tobin’s sober tendencies that there would still be some whiskey left in the cabinet. She feels like even though Tobin insisted that she wasn’t trying to prove anything, every pour that followed the next was motivated by their relatively brief discussion at dinner.

Tobin doesn’t respond ‒ not verbally. She simply nods her head like she hadn’t really heard the question (probably because she hadn’t really _heard_ Christen’s question) and shifts her body closer so that the two are just holding each other in the biggest hug possible. 

After a long drag of silence that’s filled with cuddling and soft breaths and Christen assuming that the woman smushed against her is asleep, Tobin suddenly muffles into the fabric on Christen’s shoulder, “I’m hungry.”

“Sushi didn’t fill ya up?” Christen asks, pulling away slightly to try and read any coherency on Tobin’s face.

Like a pouting child, Tobin gives a big shake of her head from side to side, and Christen chuckles because she’s never witnessed anything like this. 

It’s pretty funny.

“Well, what can we do about that?” 

Christen once again doesn’t get a verbal response as the two sit there in silence with the question hanging in the air. Then, Tobin slowly brings herself to stand up ‒ dragged like an invisible force is pulling her upwards ‒ and Christen quickly stands when she sees the drunk woman start tipping over. She puts two stabilizing hands on her shoulders and when it seems like Tobin is a bit more oriented, she leans in for a quick “thank you” peck before moving past her and continuing to the kitchen.

“So guess what I’m gonna eat,” Tobin slurs a bit as she dramatically swings the fridge door open.

Christen can’t help but smile at how adorably intoxicated her girlfriend is. She giggles slightly when Tobin accidentally bumps into the kitchen island on her path. “What?” she asks as she slowly follows. 

To respond, Tobin goes into the fridge for a second then shuts the fridge to reveal a mysterious plastic container. It must have been in the back of the fridge because the clear sides were frosted up and its contents weren’t visible. Christen sits herself down at one of the stools on the kitchen island and watches as Tobin nukes the tupperware for a minute. 

When the timer goes off, Tobin grabs the fogged up container and brings it to her face to inspect the condition of the meal. Steam wafts into her face and the little satisfied smile that grows on her face makes Christen’s smile grow as well. When they lock eyes, Tobin makes her way over to her girlfriend with an alluring demeanor and the freshly heated food ‒ its smell being so very familiar but Christen can’t quite place what it is without seeing it.

When Tobin reaches the opposite end of the kitchen island, she gives a charming grin before placing the container on the countertop and promptly sliding it across the surface on a direct path to Christen’s curiosity. 

When she finally sees it, all of the sensory hints click into place and a stupidly gigantic smile makes its way onto her face.

“Mac and cheese?” 

And before Tobin can correct her, she fixes her mistake herself. 

“I mean, _cauliflower_ and cheese?”

Tobin nods and starts walking over to where Christen and the cauliflower mac and cheese are waiting for her. She makes a pit stop to grab two forks and once she's at an arm's length, Christen grabs a fistful of the front of her shirt to pull her into a searing kiss. 

When they pull away, they both have big, goofy smiles because of the memories of their budding relationship and the irony of it all and how absolutely love drunk they are with each other. 

“Ya know,” Christen starts as she takes an offered fork. “That night might have been the first moment that I realized I was falling for you.”

Tobin takes a forkful of the gooey meal into her mouth and she can barely chew with how big her smile is. When she’s finally swallowed, she chuckles, “Funny how the drunk-sober roles have reversed.”

“But I’m still as infatuated with you as I was then.” Christen says softly.

Tobin doesn’t hesitate to surge forward and capture her lips with Christen’s.

And Christen smiles in the kiss at the taste of cheesy goodness on her lips and the warmth buzzing her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by me being m.i.a. for a while and wanting to put something out (but school is tough. v tough...) but i got some other stuff in the works, i just need a min to sit down and bang it out
> 
> continually sending positive energy to yall <3


	4. Ice Cream Cake

“Guess what I just bought?!”

“Sonnett, your lunch break ended like ten minutes ago.” Tobin informs, disregarding both Emily’s suspicious amount of enthusiasm and her question. 

The always-hectic lunch rush was just dying down with the only remaining customers being late stragglers and some regulars who know about the magnitude of the lunch crowd and strategically come afterward. Emily’s lunch break is supposed to be a quick twenty minutes away from the heat of the truck, but both Tobin and Lindsey have come to expect the southern chef to push that time limit as much as she possibly can. 

And today’s no different.

“Ug, yeah, yeah…” Emily drags out, immediately following back into the natural flow the three chefs have during operating hours and getting right into woman-ing the frier. She quickly lifts the freshly finished hushpuppies from the oil and takes two steps towards Tobin and Lindsey’s already cramped space. 

With a mischievous smile, Emily looks all around her to check if anyone else is watching them before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small, clear bag. 

Tobin’s still finishing an order and she’s barely paying attention to whatever crazy type of shenanigan Emily’s on so she fails to look at the contents of the bag in favor of sprinkling powdered sugar on this customer’s beignet order. Lindsey is also focused on mixing some kidney beans and andouille sausage so she doesn’t catch it either. 

“Aww c’mon guys!” Emily finally exacerbates after a few moments of being completely (and rightfully) ignored. At this, Tobin reluctantly takes a half-second glance to appease her friend and what she assumed would be some weird type of candy or maybe a funky piece of trash Emily might have found on the street is, to her surprise, neither of those things. 

Tobin does a double-take, her full attention now on Emily’s wide smile and her electric eyes and the tiny baggy held proudly next to her face. 

“Sonnett!” Tobin quietly yells through gritted teeth, not wanting to draw attention to what’s happening in the truck. Without warning, she snatches the plastic bag out of Emily’s fingers and whips her head to the side to make sure no customers are looking at them from outside. 

The low, but nonetheless harsh reaction prompts Lindsey to finally look away from her task and see what the fuss is about. 

“What? What is it?” she asks, eyes darting between Emily, looking very smug, and Tobin, looking very panicked. Tobin inspects their surroundings with her head on a swivel, just as Emily had done, before opening her hand discreetly under the counter to avoid unwanted lookers. 

And there in her hand is unmistakably…

“Joints?!” Lindsey all but shouts in the same hushed way as Tobin.

“Pre-rolls, my dear Lindsey.” Emily informs with an unnerving amount of chillness in her voice. “Guaranteed some of the finest strains of indica on this side of the Pacific-a.” She chuckles to herself since neither Tobin nor Lindsey seems to be in the mood for a good play on words. “I think the lady said it’s called ‘Ice Cream Cake’, so you _know_ we bout to have a good ass time.” 

Tobin hurriedly shoves the clear bag into the front pocket of Emily’s jeans like the two little tubes of marijuana filled paper will somehow burn a hole in her hand. 

“W-what the-, Tobin. Relax dude.”

“Em, you cannot be walking around with weed in our truck like that!” Tobin reprimands, successfully stuffing Emily’s pocket as if the cops are already knocking on the concession window of the truck. 

“What’s the deal? Weed’s legal, yo.” Emily rebuttals with a “duh” expression. 

Tobin gives her a stern look that, to any normal, rational human being, would be a clear signal to shut the fuck up. But Tobin also knows that Emily isn’t normal or rational, so when her look is met with innocent, questioning eyes, she explains, “ ‘Cause it’s not something we’re trying to associate with the truck, Em.” 

With that, Tobin goes back to finishing this order, adding a few extra beignets as a consolation for getting _sidetracked_ and taking a bit longer than usual to finish. “Order 84!” she yells out and an excited young woman comes scurrying up to the window. “Sorry for the wait, ma’am.” 

“Oh, no worries!” the woman easily responds, fishing through her wallet to pull out a couple of ones to throw in the designated tip jar. She grabs her po’boy and the beignets with eager hands. “I’d wait a million years to get a bite of this shrimp and these amazing beignets. Thanks, girlies!” 

“Thank you!” Tobin calls out as the customer turns to leave with her food. With a spare moment of no incoming orders, Tobin turns back to face the delinquent that is her best friend. 

They stare at each other for a prolonged moment, neither budging in this standoff the two have made. Lindsey now has no trouble multitasking between cooking and watching to see who’ll break first. 

Finally, Emily says a simple, “Dude.”

Tobin just arches her eyebrow in response, waiting to hear whatever shit is about to spill out of her friend’s mouth. 

“I’m obviously not gonna smoke in the truck-”

“-or anywhere _near_ the truck.” Tobin firmly interjects. 

Emily sighs with an unnecessarily heavy breath. “Yes. Fine.” she replies. 

“Or during work hours.” 

“Yeah…”

“Or around me.”

“Ugh!” Emily cries out as she dramatically throws her arms up in utter unbelief. “What’s your problem! If I remember correctly, we used to have a helluva good time together with your glass pipe and some mind-blowing munchie snacks.”

Tobin can’t help the small smile that tugs at her lips at the reminder of all the stoned, culinary inventions of geniusness the two used to create. “That was the past. And the snacks were only mind-blowing because we were high, dude.” 

Emily knows she’s successfully cracked the responsible, “adult-ish” exterior of Tobin’s initial reaction, and with an easy smile she comments, “But undoubtedly mind-blowing.”

With the fumes of their squabble now gone, Emily asks, “So why not near you, huh? Are you really saying you wouldn’t wanna wind down in your beautifully fancy backyard with an expertly rolled joint after a busy day at work?”

“I just haven’t really talked about that stuff with Chris.” Tobin says as she starts cleaning up her work area. “I mean, it’s technically _her_ house. And even if she’s cool with me smoking, I know for a fact she wouldn’t like the lingering smell, dude. She has business meetings and stuff at the house sometimes.”

“Well, what if we go back to my place?” Emily proposes, looking to Lindsey as well. “You too, Linds. We can all just take a couple hits, nothing too wild, and then call it.”

“ ‘Your place’ is an airbnb. Isn’t the owner gonna like, kick you out?” Lindsey asks.

Emily sighs like it’s _too_ much work to be explaining this. “I’m staying for like another week. All traces of substance use will be gone.” she assures. 

Lindsey looks hesitantly to Tobin, who exchanges an equally hesitant expression. 

“And I bet Christen would be cool with it as long as you change your clothes and take a shower after.” Emily adds, almost begging at this point. 

After a beat of silence, Tobin lets out a defeated breath and grabs her phone from her pocket. She knows that today’s Christen’s rest day from training, so she’ll probably get a reply fairly quickly. “I’ll text Chris, but don’t get your hopes up, bud.”

“Yes!” Emily shouts in victory. 

“And you’re taking my workload while I’m doing this.” Tobin adds as she moves towards the end of the truck and hears Emily’s disappointed whine. 

**Chris <3**

**[Tobin — 13:54]**

**Hey baby, you’ll never guess what**

**Sonnett just showed up w**

**[Christen — 13:58]**

**Oh no**

**What?**

**[Tobin — 14:00]**

**Two joints.**

**[Christen — 14:01]**

**Hahahaha why am I not surprised**

**Where’d she even get them?**

**[Tobin — 14:01]**

**Not totally sure, but there’s a**

**dispensary near where we’re parked**

**so I assume there**

**[Christen — 14:02]**

**Wow, that’s hilarious**

**I always saw her as a “get rip roaring drunk**

**with a beer in hand” type of person.**

**Not quite the pothead vibe haha**

Tobin bites her lip before sending another message, uncharacteristically thinking through what she’s about to say. 

**[Tobin — 14:03]**

**Yeah… she’s a crazy one**

**Funny enough, she asked if I wanted**

**to smoke a bit w her like how we**

**used to do when we were younger**

She hits send and sees that Christen keeps typing, then stopping, then typing her response. 

**[Christen — 14:05]**

**Is this something you want to do?**

Tobin lets out a breath. She doesn’t know if she’s relieved or not, but the response doesn’t sound accusatory or anything and it helps calm her a bit.

**[Tobin — 14:05]**

**I mean, it’s not something im dying**

**to do or anything.**

**But it might be fun**

With anxious, furious, foot-tapping, Tobin waits impatiently for a response. She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous really. Maybe it’s because, for some reason, the two women have never broached the subject of marijuana somehow. She has no idea what Christen’s opinion is on the matter. Deep inside, she knows that Christen is probably on the “I support it, but never use it” side of the topic, but who knows. She might be in for a surprise. The three texting dots suddenly disappear and Christen’s response finally comes through.

**[Christen — 14:06]**

**If that’s something you want to do, go for it**

**[Tobin — 14:06]**

**u sure?**

**[Christen — 14:07]**

**Of course.**

**I’m not going to force you not to or anything**

**I’m fully aware of the medicinal and recreational**

**desires of marijuana**

Tobin smiles at that. Of course Christen’s chill about it. She laughs at herself for thinking that somehow Christen would be mad or judgmental about something like that. With that weight off her shoulders, Tobin replies with a playful proposal.

**[Tobin — 14:08]**

**Would u wanna come try it out w us?**

**[Christen — 14:08]**

**Haha I wouldn’t be trying it because I’ve smoked**

**marijuana before.**

**[Tobin — 14:08]**

**What!! Really?!**

**[Christen — 14:09]**

**Yes really haha**

**Why is that so surprising?**

**[Tobin — 14:09]**

**Idk, just never imagined you ever**

**doing that**

**[Christen — 14:09]**

**Well I only tried it once in college.**

**It’s by no means a frequent occurrence.**

**[Tobin — 14:10]**

**Huh… I love learning new things**

**about you**

**Keeps me on my toes**

**< 3 <3 <3**

And Tobin’s just about to pocket her phone and get back to work (especially because she hears an overly dramatic yell from Emily coming from behind her), but one last text notification stops her for a second.

And Tobin’s smile grows wide when she reads:

**[Christen — 14:11]**

**And sure, I’ll come try it out with you guys**

_Oh this is gonna be fun_ Tobin thinks to herself as she texts what time they get off of work. 

~~~

A split second after hearing three knocks on Emily’s door, Tobin jumps up from her spot on the couch and races to where she knows her girlfriend is waiting to be let in. 

“Ooooo, I’m so excited!” Emily announces while twirling the unlit joint in her fingers, just waiting for the go-ahead to flick on her lighter. 

Tobin swings the door open to find a smiley Christen Press. “Hey baby!” she greets as the two step into a warm hug. She breathes in the refreshingly soft scent of Christen’s detergent knowing that it’ll soon be replaced with the skunky smell of weed. 

“Hi,” Christen muffles into Tobin’s shoulder. “How was work?” 

They pull back and the two walk further into Emily’s airbnb that she’s renting for the few weeks she’s in town. “Same old, same fun.” she answers and Christen rolls her eyes because that’s the exact response she gets every day when she asks that question. 

But she can’t help the smile on her face from the fact that after months and months of working the truck (travel has been limited with Christen’s one camp so far being conveniently held in L.A.), Tobin still loves what she’s doing. 

Before Tobin can ask how Christen’s training session that afternoon went, Emily sees them walk into the room and shouts, “Chris!”

“Hi Em,” she responds before going to hug the ecstatic woman. 

“I’m...so..ex...cit..ed!” Emily says, eagerly jumping which makes both of them bounce up and down in the embrace. She pulls away with a blinding grin. “You ready or what?”

Christen gives an appeasing smile. “Sure, Em. The Bachelorette’s on tonight, so Tobs and I are on a time crunch, though.” she informs with complete, unwavering seriousness. 

“Well, c’mon then!” Emily responds, sitting back down on the couch and patting the space beside her for Christen to join. 

She flicks her thumb across her lighter a couple of times until a steady flame is produced. As Christen sets her purse on the floor beside her and lowers herself down to the indicated spot next to Emily, she watches the southern chef carefully bring the end of the joint towards the fire. It’s almost mesmerizing to watch the way Emily oh-so-meticulously spins the joint in her fingers to make sure it burns evenly. When the joint is softly burning, Emily looks up to scan the room of three other women.

“Here we go y’all.” she says with a smile before bringing the filtered end to her lips. Everyone watches as Emily’s eyes close and her upper body visibly inflates with a large inhale of the joint ‒ the cherry illuminating with a dim red-orange glow. She pulls the joint away and holds her breath for a couple of seconds before finally sagging her shoulders and releasing a long stream of smoke from her nose. 

After some seconds of silence, Emily’s eyes slowly peel open and she mutters in a slightly raspy tone, “Damn.”

“Yeah?” Lindsey says with a chuckle at how quickly her friend’s entire demeanor changed in an instant. 

Emily nods with a dopey smile. “Ice Cream Cake dude. Does _not_ disappoint, that’s for sure.” A second later, she turns to Christen ‒ an inviting glimmer in her eyes. “You ready, Press? You totally don’t have to but if you want…”

Christen looks at the burning joint with the unpleasant smell invading her nose. “No, no, I want to try it again. Last time I did it in college, I don’t think I got enough of it to actually feel the effects.”

“Do you know how?” Emily asks, handing the joint off to Christen’s novice fingers. “Ya just breath in, hold, and breathe out. It’s just like all that yoga stuff you do. Just pretend you’re meditating or something. Same effects anyway.” 

“Sorta…” Christen chuckles. She continues to stare down the burning item between her thumb and index finger. 

It feels bad. She feels bad ‒ like she’s breaking some sort of rule or something. But she doesn’t have any future, soccer-related obligations for once in her life and marijuana _is_ technically legal for recreational use in California for those 21 and over. If not now, when?

Before she can talk herself out of anything, she copies the actions she just saw Emily do and brings the joint to her lips.

Breath in.

Hold. 

Breath out. 

She coughs and coughs and wheezes and coughs and it feels like she just walked into a burning house with distinguishable particles swirling in her lungs and Tobin ‒ ever the protective girlfriend ‒ is quick to walk over and take the joint of Christen’s fingers. 

“Are you okay?” Tobin asks as she takes a seat on the couch beside Christen, rubbing calming circles on her back. 

Christen doesn’t say anything in response while she continues to cough with a scrunched up face, but she does wave a sort of dismissive hand in front of her. 

“Happens to the best of us.” Emily amends with a sympathetic smile. Tobin doesn’t hesitate to shoot Emily a glare as she reaches for a bottle of water on the coffee table in front of them and offers it to her sputtering girlfriend. Christen grabs it and quickly uncaps it to take a number of large gulps of the soothing liquid. After chugging nearly the entire bottle, she sets it back on the table and takes a few clear breaths through her nose and out her mouth. 

“Well…” she finally says, a hint of grittiness to her voice and her cheeks significantly more flushed. “That wasn’t too bad.”

~~~

Never in a million years would Tobin have imagined herself in the situation she’s currently in. 

But here she is, the only sober one in a room with two of her long-time friends and business partners, both of whom are stoned after a few hits…

And her adorable, goody-two-shoes girlfriend... who’s _completely_ stoned out of her mind.

After the initial disaster that was Christen’s go at a joint years after her first time in college, Lindsey went ahead and took a hit, which led to Christen wanting to try again without coughing, which led to Christen smoking a lot more than she probably should have. Tobin quickly realized that, being the last one left, she unintentionally left herself as the DD for Christen since Lindsey decided to just crash here at Emily’s place. 

Which means that she is the only sober one in a room full of high, giggling fools. 

Which, undoubtedly, is still pretty funny to watch anyway.

“Tobyyyy…” Christen draws out slowly with a blissed-out grin. She brings languid arms up to wrap around Tobin’s broad shoulders, pulling her into a gratuitous hug. 

“What’s up?” Tobin asks with a chuckle. She’s never seen Christen like this and to say it’s an entertaining sight would be an understatement. It’s not the confused, slurred manner of drunk Christen that she’s witnessing. High Christen is giggly and relaxed and happy and it’s seriously adorable to watch. 

“Hmmmm…” the delirious woman hums before drowsily saying, “Claire. Is. Wacky!”

“Preach!”

Tobin and Christen laugh when they hear the exclaimed comment coming from Lindsey, who’s currently ripping the kitchen apart with Emily. No one would’ve guessed that the two blondes are world-class chefs with how aggressively they're tearing into a bag of tortilla chips. And fruit loops. And raw cookie dough. 

“Well, Claire’s gone. But we can still check out what Tayshia’s up to.” Tobin says, having to bite her bottom lip to contain the gigantic smile that’s threatening to overcome her entire face. 

She uses “we” lightly because when they watch The Bachelorette, it usually consists of Christen being fully engrossed in the show and Tobin alternating between zoning out and sneakily trying to play Subway Surfer on her phone. 

“Let’s see who she gives the rose to.” Christen mutters.

“Wanna go? Right now?” 

With her eyes closed and a satisfied smile that’s so wide that it looks like her cheeks are being pinched by an invisible grandma, Christen nods her head. 

“Alright.” Tobin says, lifting Christen whose arms are still wrapped around her. With both of them on their feet, Tobin yells towards the chaos in the kitchen, “Yo! We’re headin out! This isn’t my house but Linds, you’re in charge. Don’t die, you two!”

“Yeah! Suck it Son!” is all Tobin hears from the kitchen, chuckling and reassuring herself that leaving those two alone is perfectly fine. Hopefully. 

She turns around to head towards the door and just as she’s about to reach her hand behind her for Christen to grab, suddenly, something jumps and latches itself onto her back without warning. Luckily, Tobin’s able to just barely keep her balance and stay upright as two arms and two legs wrap themselves around Tobin’s body. 

“Whoa, there! Whatcha doin?” she blurts out with her own arms outstretched to try and keep her balance. All she hears in response is a fit of giggles behind her and she can feel Christen’s body starting to erupt with laughter. Once she’s gotten her center of balance back, she brings her hands securely underneath the thighs that are around her waist. She then feels a weight rest on her shoulder, so she turns her head to the side where she can kind of see her adorable girlfriend’s face squished against the fabric of her shirt. “Whatcha doin, baby?” she asks again with a chuckle. 

Christen lifts her head and abruptly points to the door. “Onward! To Taco Bell!”

“Taco Bell?” Tobin laughs, feeling like she’s the one who’s high with how completely confused she is. “Who said anything about Taco Bell?”

“I did, Toby! I need a lot of Taco Bell while we watch The Bachelorette.” Christen explains like it’s the most obvious course of action. “I’m hungry.”

Tobin just laughs again. _Of course_ she should’ve expected this to happen. 

But she would try to buy the whole damn Taco Bell company if Christen asked her to. 

So without question, she says, “Okie-dokie. TB here we come!” as she carries her girlfriend out of the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by me finally having a damn minute to sit down and write some stuff out! my classes are slowing down (until finals week hehe rip) so im hoping to make some progress on some more chapters here if i can not procrastinate for a hot sec. 
> 
> as always, sending positive vibes to yall and in the spirit of thanksgiving, i wanna say im v thankful for you and you and you <3 stay safe my friends


	5. Chicken, Oats, and Barley

When Christen first proposed this idea, she was four glasses of wine in and giddy and squeezed next to Tobin’s body as if the entire rest of the living room didn’t have enough space. 

She said it as a joke, accompanied by a lighthearted chuckle and everything. She spoke the idea into existence from some curiously wine-tipsy part of her brain, just to see what Tobin’s reaction would be. 

But Tobin ‒ significantly more sober than Christen at that point ‒ went along and agreed to it that night. 

And that’s why Christen now finds herself in the early hours of the day, sitting in the driver’s seat of the renowned “To’binz Po’boyz” food truck, with a mild headache that only serves as a reminder of why she should really try to pace herself on Sunday wine nights. 

But she’d be lying if she said a teeny-tiny part of her wasn’t excited.

“We’re packed and ready to go!” Tobin exclaims once she’s jumped into the passenger seat ‒ a seat that, until now, has been predominantly occupied for one Lindsey Horan. 

Christen thinks it’s still a bit too early in the day for such a punch in the face of energy, but any possible annoyance is subdued when she looks into her girlfriend’s pure, blissful eyes. So in response, she simply smiles and leans over to give a short little kiss to Tobin’s adorably cute lips. 

With a turn of the key, the truck roars into life. The eruption of the engine seems to be an audible cue to Christen that she’s going to have to drive this giant vehicle through the city and that realization sparks the first feelings of nervousness in her body. Tobin picks up on how green eyes anxiously shift to her timid hands and how a concerned crease appears between the eyebrows of her tan skin. Tobin wants this to go well. She’s excited and she wants Christen to be excited too. So she softly offers, “Want me to drive?”

She gets a firm no with a shake of Christen’s head. “No, I got it. I said that I want to experience a day in your life and so I will drive this beast of a truck.”

A proud, knowing smile creeps onto Tobin’s face and she doesn’t bring attention to the undeniable stubbornness that laces those words. “Alrighty, you know where to go?” she asks as she leans her head back into the seat and assumes her role as the passenger for once in her life. 

“Yup.”

~~~

They go to a less crowded area than the truck’s usual spot. Tobin let Lindsey and Emily have the day off because the kitchen is already cramped with the three of them and she knew that they’d be sardines if Christen were to join for the day. 

So instead of the busy foot traffic of the beach, she has Christen drive them to a much calmer neighborhood park that the truck occasionally makes an appearance at. Tobin tries to switch up their location spots (updated through the newly _verified_ To’binz Po’boyz Instagram) to try to serve the many different demographics of the city. 

Even at this less crowded park, there are still a few people anticipating their arrival and when Christen pulls up to the curb, Tobin eagerly hops out to greet the equally eager customers. The drive time successfully woke Christen up and she quickly follows suit by climbing out of the driver’s seat to see what jobs Tobin will give her. 

“Hey Tobs!” she hears someone cheerily greet. As Christen makes her way around the front of the truck, she sees that the voice belongs to a young, beautiful woman ‒ a little _too_ perky in Christen’s opinion. 

“Hi Katie,” Tobin responds with a smile as she starts setting up different signs and tables from the back of the truck. 

This “Katie” person takes a couple of steps forward before saying, “How’s your morning going?”

Christen, who has yet to reveal her presence, simply watches this interaction from where she’s subtly standing at the front of the truck. It’s an innocent, surface-level conversation that she imagines Tobin has with many customers during work hours, but she can’t help but notice how Katie’s smile suggests something a bit more than “friendly” and how unnecessarily close the woman is currently standing to Tobin, considering that the bubbly tone of her voice would definitely be heard if she took one damn step back. 

But maybe she’s reading too much into the situation, Christen tells herself. 

“It’s pretty fantastic,” Tobin says gleefully. After arranging different sauces and condiments on the table out front, she places two hands on her hips and faces Katie with a gleeful smile. 

“Why’s that?” Katie grins, taking another step closer to effectively cross that line between friendly social space and personal space, now approaching a level of intimate space and before Tobin can say anything, Christen’s legs are promptly taking her over to the two women. 

“Need me to do anything, babe?” she asks with a hopefully believable (but nonetheless forced) smile plastered on her face. Christen takes the moment to casually circle her arms around Tobin’s waist and she’s pleasantly surprised when Tobin easily swings her arm around her shoulders. 

With a quick kiss to Christen’s temple, Tobin says, “Nope, I got it all set up for ya.” Christen can't help that her smile becomes a little less forced and a little more genuine at her girlfriend’s loving actions but she’s only pulled out of the moment when she hears a perky, “Hi, there!”

Christen looks back to see Katie, now the one with a forced smile on her face, who has since stepped back with an _acceptable_ amount of space between them. 

“Oh hey,” Christen responds like she had no clue that there was a questionable woman standing here. And Christen isn’t petty. Well… sometimes she can be a little petty. But she can also subdue this pettiness to an impressive extent, so she doesn’t try to push it anymore because she knows that her message has been sent and received (clearly, by the shy look that’s now on Katie’s face.)

“Katie, this is Christen, my girlfriend. Christen, this is one of our loyal customers, Katie.” Tobin introduces. “And our guest chef here is the reason why I think today’s gonna be absolutely fantastic.”

Katie gives a tight-lipped smile and a silent, understanding nod. And after a moment of semi-tense waiting for someone to say anything, Christen clears her throat and says with a signaling pat on Tobin’s abdomen, “Well I guess we should get to work.”

“Right!” Tobin giddily says. “How about for now, you take orders and I’ll cook.” Tobin suggests as the two quickly shuffle into the food truck. 

Christen turns to face out of the concession window to see that Katie is still standing there, left wordlessly from their previous encounter. With a slightly smug but appropriately professional grin, Christen politely asks “What can I get for you, Katie?”

Brought out of her haze, Katie timidly answers, “Um… could I just have a side of cornbread and a water please?”

“Of course,” Christen says and as one last statement before setting her pettiness aside once and for all, she looks behind her shoulder and calls out, “Did you get that, love?”

“Yup!” Tobin replies with both her hands moving busily around the different kitchen tools. 

Christen looks back to the awaiting customer and says with a smile, “That’ll be six flat.”

~~~

The rest of the workday goes smoothly after that initial little bump of jealousy. Turns out that Christen’s excellent communication and conversational skills make her the best person to receive and relay orders and the two of them are able to crank through customers like nobody’s business. It also helps that the most cooking Christen has been tasked to do is plate some sides and pull drinks out of the fridge, but she reasons that it’s for the best unless they want the truck to be set aflame. 

Before they know it, the usual rush hours pass and it’s during these slower periods of traffic that Christen can reflect and realize why Tobin loves working the food truck so much ‒ why she seems to live and breathe all things related to the success of this business. The adrenaline Christen got simply from taking orders almost matched the feeling she gets on the pitch. It’s fast-paced at times. It’s visceral. It’s both physically and mentally draining while also being so very awarding. And if Christen had to take anything away from this experimental “bring your girlfriend to work” day, it’s an invigorating appreciation for the operations of this food truck. 

Between customers, the two talk and joke around and enjoy each other's company as if it were an all-day date. Conversation only pauses when Tobin has to start another batch of shrimp or Christen has to refill the condiment table. 

In the middle of Tobin’s pitch to have sushi for dinner, Christen interrupts her with a squeal and a splitting smile. 

“Oh my gosh! Look at the puppy!” she says as she all but lunges out of the concession window.

Tobin peers out to see that there is, in fact, a furry creature walking along the sidewalk. “Awww, cute doggy.” Tobin comments, the two women now fully entertained by the wandering dog. 

After a few moments of watching this dog walk back and forth along the path, meandering through the traffic of pedestrians, Christen mutters, “Where’s its owner?”

“Maybe they’re just hanging out somewhere around here.”

“Hmm…” Christen hums with an unconvinced tone and before another second passes, she rushes out of the truck and Tobin doesn’t have to guess what’s about to happen next. Sure enough, she sees her girlfriend slowly approaching this little puppy, crouching down as the furry creature confidently walks over to her. And she can’t help the wide smile that grows on her face when Christen adorably bites her lip and scratches behind the dog’s fuzzy ear. She sees Christen inspecting around the dog’s neck but a couple of seconds later, Christen starts furiously waving for Tobin to come over. 

With any potential fire-starting appliances at bay and no customers at the moment, Tobin makes her way out of the truck and over to where Christen’s face is now being attacked by licks and a wet tongue. As she squats beside them and starts brushing her hand over the soft, gray fur of what looks to be a pitbull puppy, Tobin asks, “What’s the deal with this guy.”

“Well first of all, if you’re familiar with basic anatomy you’d realize that she’s a girl,” Christen teases, earning her a full eye roll in response. “And she doesn’t seem to have a tag, poor girl…”

“Whatcha mean?” Tobin asks and as she feels around the dog’s collar, she notes the absence of any sort of metal tag or identification label. “Huh…” She looks up and scans the area, waiting to see some frantic dog-owner to appear, looking for their lost dog. But everyone around them is just walking past casually and occasionally sending confused glances before continuing forward. 

When looking back down at the stray being sufficiently pampered by Christen, Tobin immediately recognizes the glimmer in those green eyes ‒ it’s a glimmer of hope and affection and desire.

 _Uh oh…_ she thinks to herself but she can’t help the fuzzy warmth that pools in her chest at the sight of seeing Christen so blissful with the equally affectionate puppy. 

“So I guess we gotta see if she’s listed anywhere.” Tobin announces with a questioning undertone, waiting to gauge what Christen will say. “I can ask Linds to keep an eye out for any ‘lost dog’ posters while she’s in town this afternoon.”

Christen finally looks up for what seems like the first time since spotting the pooch and the glimmer that was in her eyes is now replaced by a hint of dread. But Tobin can almost visibly see the moment when her girlfriend pushes down any growing attachments to go along with this responsible plan of action. 

“Yeah…” she sighs, bringing her hands to cup the puppy’s smiley face. “I guess I’ll check online...”

Tobin would be lying if she said her heart didn’t break a bit hearing the hollowness in Christen’s voice. In hopes of uplifting this growingly somber situation, she suggests, “What do you say you take off working the truck today. I think you clocked in some quality hours so I can handle the rest of the crowds for today and you can head back home to hang with the pooch.”

Her efforts are fruitful when she gets a smile and an adorable little nod in response. After a quick kiss to seal the deal, Tobin hops back up to head back to the truck before the amount of waiting customers increases. Looking behind her, she grins as she watches Christen carefully lift the tiny pup into her arms and follow behind. 

Before she can get too wrapped up in how adorable the puppy is and how adorable her girlfriend is and how adorable her girlfriend holding that puppy is… she gets her mind back into work mode. 

“Hi! Sorry bout the wait. What can I get for you?”

~~~

There are two scenarios Tobin imagines when she gets back home. 

One: Christen found the owner of their discovered puppy and has successfully returned her. 

Or two: Christen wasn’t able to find the owner from any ads online, which means that they’re wildly unprepared to take care of a puppy until an ad pops up. 

The second she steps into the house, she’s almost knocked right on her ass by a small blur blasting past her feet. With a reflexive hand placed on the wall in order to keep her balance, Tobin looks around the ground to try and find the source of the blur that whizzed by. She gets her answer soon enough when Christen quickly shuffles in from where it looked like the gray blur just came from, with what looks like a tiny, plush soccer ball in her hands. 

In one frantic glance, Christen spots Tobin by the door and she gives a disheveled smile before making her way to her girlfriend. “Hi, baby!” she exhales in a short, almost labored breath. A little rattled, Tobin fails to give a response as Christen leans in to give her a quick kiss to her confused face. Before she knows it, Christen’s off without another word. 

In lieu of any sort of explanation, Tobin decides to just go with whatever’s happening in the house right now. She kicks off her shoes and makes her way into the kitchen where she throws her backpack off of her shoulder. With one last (uninformative) look behind her shoulder to see if anything will clue her in on where Christen went (or if any unidentifiable object will potentially knock her over), she makes her way over to the cupboard where she keeps her after-work snacks. 

Just as she opens the cabinet door, she hears the distinctive voice of her girlfriend yelling, “Tobin, wait!”

But before she can turn around, it’s too late.

Tobin is toppled by a human-sized bag that effectively crashes against her puny, mortal body, sending her down to the ground. Luckily, she’s able to keep her head from colliding with the tile floor, but she tries to shift her head down to see what the gargantuan mass is that’s currently pinning her down. Before she can discern any sort of label or indicator, she’s hit with another wave of confusion in the form of warm, wet licks to her face. 

“Whu- what…” she mutters through a few giggles as she fails to squirm her body away. No matter how much she moves her head around, she fails to save herself from the tongue attacking her scrunched up face. 

To her rescue, the heavy bag on top of her body is slowly shifted off and the unrelenting face licking is taken away as her beautiful girlfriend comes into view. 

Her beautiful girlfriend with the pitbull puppy they had found, panting happily in her arms.

“You okay, babe? Did you hit your head? Should we check for a concussion?” Christen asks in a tone that can only be compared to that of a worried mother. 

Tobin uses the small sleeve of her t-shirt to wipe off as much dog saliva from her face. “Uh… no, yeah, I’m fine. I’m good.” she assures, seeing an extending hand to help her up off the floor. She grabs a hold and Christen gradually helps pull her up with the puppy securely in her other arm. Once she’s up and cognizant, a smile creeps on her face at the gosh darn cute doggy they had found that afternoon. 

“I guess you didn’t find anything online about a missing pup?” she asks as she scratches behind the pooch’s furry ears with the tiny tongue that was just on her face now hanging happily out of the canine’s smile. 

“Nope. No ads, no nothing.” Christen reports as she looks at the dog in her arms. Tobin gives her a questioning look. “I swear I actually checked!” she promises.

Tobin chuckles, “Okay, I believe you. We’re gonna have to check for a few more days, I guess.”

“Yeah…” Christen sighs with the same sorrowful tone as that afternoon. She perks up a bit when she adds, “But in the meantime, we gotta take good care of lil Boots here.”

“Oh no, you named her? Chris…”

“I know, I know, but I had to!” she quickly defends. “I can’t just call her nothing!”

“I guess…” Tobin groans, knowing that it’ll be _that_ much more heartbreaking to give her back if there’s an attachment to the pup. “Why Boots?” 

Christen chuckles at the question before explaining, “Well when we got home from the pet store, I gave her all of these squeaky toys, right? But the second her paws hit the ground, she ran all around the house and wound up getting ahold of my cleats from my training bag. And Boots sounds cuter than calling her ‘Cleats’, so…”

They both laugh at the story, suppressing the fact that they’re falling completely in love with the little doggy between them. 

“Wait? The pet store?” Tobin questions, finally looking over to whatever mass had just sent her on her ass moments ago. She reads the label printed on the giant bag. “ ‘Blue Wilderness, high-protein food for dogs’?” 

“With chicken, oats, and barely.” Christen adds with an innocent smile. “It has wholesome, natural ingredients, and antioxidants.”

Tobin takes a moment to really take in her surroundings now, spotting the various chew toys scattered around the living room and hallways. She steps towards the bag of dog food and gives it a little kick, chuckling to herself when the giant unit barely shifts at all. “This is like a Costco size quantity, babe.” 

“Yup.” Christen says, knowing what’s exactly what Tobin’s really saying with her comment. 

“What are we gonna do with all this dog food when we give her back to her owners?” 

Christen bites her bottom lip at the question. But she responds with a simple, “I don’t know. Give it to the shelter?” 

Of course, she really hopes that they won’t have to give the extra dog food to the shelter. 

Because it would eventually be eaten by the energetic little puppy in her arms. 

Because she doesn’t know if she has the emotional strength to give Boots away now.

Tobin gives her an almost sympathetic smile, telling her that she understands these unspoken hopes and desires that are swirling around Christen’s head. Fortunately, Tobin doesn’t push any further as she walks past Christen and visibly struggles to lift the bag of dog food back upwards and into the cupboard (and noticing the few cans of wet dog food that have also found their way into the cupboard). 

With the bag back in place, Tobin turns back around to face Christen and their (temporary? permanent?) new pet. “Well…” she huffs out, a little out of breath from having to maneuver such a cumbersome bag. “Should we call it a night?”

“Yeah,” Christen smiles, glad and slightly relieved to know that Tobin isn’t mad or irritated or annoyed. Tobin heads in the direction of their bedroom and, to make matters even better, she stops to give a lingering kiss to Christen temple and immediately follows it with a kiss to the top of Boots’ fuzzy head. 

_Uh oh_ Christen thinks to herself as her heart swells. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by me trying to capitalize on this free time w winter break. my fam and i dont usually do a huge thing for thanksgiving, but no matter if u do or dont, i wanna say im thankful and grateful for so much in my life and i hope yall spend the day cherishing the things that ur thankful and grateful for! 
> 
> (this kinda ended on a bit of a question mark, so maybe we'll see what happens in a later chap...? hehe)


	6. Peanut Butter Biscuits

“Oh my god, Chris. It doesn’t matter!”

“Yes it does! Why are you fighting me on this?”

“No. I’m not- we’re not-” Tobin stutters and lets the failed sentence die with a huff of frustrated air. She closes her eyes for a second to recollect her thoughts and after a deep, calming breath, she tries again. “I’m not trying to fight you. I don’t even think this should be an argument.”

Christen crosses her arms so aggressively that Tobin thinks she’s about to interrupt her, but to her surprise, the woman remains silent (though, Tobin can practically hear the heated monologue that’s surely going through her head.)

“Babe. I didn’t know that Boots had a specific type of wet dog food. I didn’t even know dogs needed two types of dog food and I thought she was all set with that gigantic bag you bought.”

Christen wastes no time, just _barely_ letting Tobin finish until she’s back spewing words. “Well at least I bought her some food!” she exclaims as she throws her arms up in anguish. “You were ready to just leave her in the street when we found her-”

“Hey.” Tobin cuts in sternly, now that her integrity is being questioned. “I would _never_ do that and you know it.”

But Christen’s onto the next line of fire as she continues her rant. “Yeah? Well it feels like I’m the only one who actually cares about this puppy! I feed her, I clean up after her, I make sure she’s going to doggy daycare when you’re off at work and I have training!”

Tobin lets out another long, heavy breath, trying to alleviate the fire that’s threatening to overcome her body and her words. She needs to be careful in this situation, but it’s hard when Christen seems to be able to push all the right buttons. 

It’s definitely been challenging caring for an animal companion when both Tobin and Christen have such jammed packed schedules most of the time. Hell, they already struggle with finding time for date nights and other social activities separate from their jobs. But adding another factor in their life that needs almost constant care, food, water, love, and it suddenly feels like they’ve been thrown into a pressure cooker. 

They waited a couple of days after finding the little pitbull puppy for any ads or cries for help about a lost dog and they uploaded their own “found dog” post for the original owner to find, but nothing popped up. And after every passing day with their unclaimed animal, it seemed as though Christen’s been getting more and more excited that her not-so-subtle desire to keep the puppy forever is becoming a reality.

And yeah, maybe Tobin hasn’t outwardly shown her love and devotion for Boots as much as Christen would like, but it also bugs Tobin at this claim that she hasn’t done _anything_ at all. She wants to point it out. In this very moment with a momentary lull in their argument, it’s on the tip of her tongue ‒ how she plays with Boots when she gets home from work, sometimes earlier than Christen, how she lets Boots out to pee every morning despite her instinctual need to sleep in as much as possible, how she's grown quite the attachment to the canine even though she’s afraid that the original owner will show up unexpectedly and take Boots away from them any day now. 

But she can’t seem to get the words out and Christen takes her silence by the horns to get every spit of venom out of her mouth. 

“So the _one_ time I asked you to do something for her, to just go to the store and get her some food, you care so little that you don’t even get the right kind. Why can’t you at least pretend to care about her?”

“I didn’t know you had her on some special eating plan!” Tobin shouts defensively. “You didn’t tell me. You just said ‘hey, can you pick up some food for Boots on your way back?’ and I did!”

“If you didn’t know, you should’ve asked!” 

Another dead pause with the air becoming increasingly suffocating for them both. 

Looking back on this, they’ll laugh about it all. To be fair, they’re arguing about a dog ‒ about how Tobin didn’t pick up the right kind of dog food. It’s ridiculous in the grand scheme of things. 

But of course, neither of them realizes this at the moment. 

After a moment with nothing left to say ‒ with no other jabs left to give ‒ Christen abruptly picks up her purse from the counter and charges past Tobin’s surprised body. 

“I’m going to the store to get Boots’ food.” she huffs out through a clenched jaw.

The second Tobin hears the front door slam closed, she completely deflates. And then she feels a pang of guilt for feeling almost _relieved_ that Christen has left and that she feels like she can take full, deep breaths again. Christen’s dramatic exit must have jostled the entire house because Tobin can hear the clacking of tiny nails against the tile floor of the stairs. She turns to see the most adorable set of blue eyes as Boots slowly makes her way towards Tobin from the bedroom where she had probably been napping this entire time. 

“Awww, it’s okay Boots.” Tobin coos as she goes to pick up the tiny creature. She bends down and scoops Boots into her arms and she feels as though her heart might break when she feels a soft, furry head snuggle against her chest. Her heart actually does break when Boots lets out a few whines, somehow sensing the residual tension in the room left over from the fiery argument seconds ago. 

“Shhhh…” Tobin tries to comfort the sensitive little pup. “It’s okay, B. We’re okay.” She rocks the puppy in her arms like a newborn baby, trying to coax the canine back into a relaxed sleep. “I know you’re hungry, but Momma went to get you the right kind of food and we’ll all be okay.” 

Her soft words and gentle movements successfully pull Boots into a light slumber as Tobin hears the most precious little snores she’s ever heard. With the sleeping puppy in her arms, she knows she’s bought a little bit of time before Boots gets too hungry and won’t be as easily subdued with a nap. 

Tobin doesn’t know exactly when Christen will be back. The pet store is a good drive away and considering the rush hour traffic (that she luckily missed by leaving work early after being tasked to pick up dog food), she’s beginning to worry that this little puppy might wake up without any food for her belly. 

After a few moments of thought, an idea springs into Tobin’s head. 

Quickly, but calmly, she rushes the snoring puppy back upstairs and gently rests her on their bed. She rushes back down to the kitchen, whips her laptop out from her backpack that’s on one of the island stools, and grabs her notebook from her back pocket. Within a few minutes of speedy typing, skimming through a few articles, and a page full of scribbles, she shuts her laptop with a determined smile. 

Without a second to waste, she heads to the tall cabinet that holds all of her aprons and throws one on.

~~~

Christen thinks up a multitude of apologies on her drive back home from the pet store. 

She’s (typically) extremely level headed. It’s a characteristic that is known by almost everybody who meets her. She meditates and stays grounded and tries to make an effort to see things from all perspectives. But almost everybody who meets her also knows that she has a fire inside of her. It’s this other side of this zen-like characteristic that makes her such a ruthless player on the pitch. But it also means that she can hold her own in an argument. And being as articulate as she is, it makes for some nasty debates and disputes. 

But in the amount of time it took to drive to the pet store, find the fancy dog food that Tobin failed to get, and drive back only to get stuck in traffic, Christen has significantly cooled off from the heat of their altercation. 

While most people sitting in evening LA traffic are frustrated and annoyed and generally hating life because sitting in a car after a long day of work is absolutely brutal, Christen has been spending the last fifteen minutes or so reflecting. 

_Why did I get so mad?_

_Why did we argue?_

_Where was the source of my anger coming from?_

_Was it really the dog food that made me blow up like that or is there some underlying issue that my anger truly stemmed from?_

_How should I apologize?_

_What exactly am I apologizing for?_

_What outcome do I wish for after apologizing?_

These questions and thoughts help past the time and before Christen is even consciously aware of it, she’s pulling into the familiar driveway of her house. 

Her home. 

Her house that she only considers home because of one, specific person who’s in there right now. 

With one last breath to eliminate any last feelings of anger or ego, she gets out of her car, grabs the grocery bag filled with cans of premium, puppy food, and walks to the front door. And after a moment to collect her thoughts and solidify her plan of action for how she wants to amend their quarrel, she opens the front door. 

To her surprise, the potent smell of peanut butter all of but smacks her sense of smell the moment she walks in. It’s not necessarily unpleasant, but it’s definitely strong enough to wake a coma patient up.

When Christen turns the corner to peer towards the kitchen, she sees the obvious source of the smell. There's baking sheets and mixers and ingredients scattered across the counter. Christen's about ten seconds from losing her shit over this mess left by Tobin's cooking ‒ the subsided anger from before quickly beginning to bubbling inside of her at full force. But as she steps closer into the kitchen and inspects what has actually been made, her eyebrows pinch together because she's never seen Tobin bake...

… brown, bone-shaped cookies?

If she's being honest, they don't look the best. Maybe her bar has been set substantially high with the plethora of magnificent desserts she's seen Tobin produce, but these cookies just look dry and muted and overall unappealing. They smell very strongly of peanut butter, but not the delicious, clean-the-spoon, slather-on-everything, kind of peanut butter. More like the really, really healthy, organic kind that has all the unhealthy goodness sucked out of them. 

But Christen's got a shameless sweet tooth and just as she picks one up, feeling how it's still fresh and warm in her hand, she hears the pleasantly recognizable sound of laughter coming from the hall.

She turns to see Tobin stroll in carrying Boots in her arms. The tiny pitbull is licking all over Tobin's face, making her giggle and squeeze her eyes closed in delight.

"Boots… s-stop!" Tobin continues, her eyes still shut so she's yet to notice Christen standing before her. "We're getting some more. I'm so glad you like them- AH!"

Her sentence gets cut off with a girlish shriek when she finally opens her eyes and sees Christen. 

Christen can see how her girlfriend instinctively clutches their puppy closer to her chest and the whole scene makes her want to both laugh and awww at the sight.

"Jeez, you gave me a frickin heart attack." Tobin says with her chest visibly rising and falling due to her spiked heart rate. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Yeah, I only just got back." Christen explains almost timidly, putting down the bag of dog food from the store and making her way towards their puppy to scratch behind her soft ears.

There's another moment of silence, but it's filled with complete and utter adoration for the smiley little puppy between them. They both look affectionately at Boots before simultaneously lifting their heads back up to stare into each other's eyes. Wordlessly, they move in for a quick but tender kiss that seems to effectively sum up all the sorry's and apologies that Christen could ever possibly conjure up.

But just to make it explicitly clear, Christen mumbles against Tobin's lips, "I'm sorry."

And Tobin responds in an equally soft whisper, "I'm sorry too".

And it seems to be enough, at least for now.

"Did you get the right kind of food?" Tobin asks as the three of them approach the kitchen island. 

Christen reaches into the bag to grab one of the cans of dog food to show. "Yep." she says, handing the can to Tobin’s free hand that's not currently holding Boots. She watches Tobin study all the details of the label, seemingly memorizing every letter and number displayed.

"Got it." she says confidently before placing the can on the counter.

And Christen can’t help the grateful smile that forms on her face. To show her gratitude, she leans in for another quick kiss with a "thank you" to follow. 

Turning around, she’s reminded of the strange batch of cookies on the baking sheet.

"What brought you to make cookies?" she asks, picking up the one she was just holding in her hands when she first discovered them.

"Um, I wouldn't eat one if I were you." Tobin comments with one of those smiles that tells Christen that there's something she doesn't know. Boots starts to bark and bark at Christen and it's only then that the dots start to connect. "Those are some good ol’ d.i.y. dog treats I made for the little one here." Tobin informs, taking the cookie out of Christen's hand and bringing it to Boots' mouth to bite off a chunk. "I didn't know when you'd be back and I knew Boots would be hungry when she woke up, so I tried to whip up a snack for her until you came back.”

Christen's smile grows wider as she watches the little puppy happily chew on the peanut butter biscuit. 

"Also, I already tried one and they're really not that good since they don’t have added sugar or anything." Tobin adds and Christen just laughs because _of course_ she can imagine Tobin getting curious and eating a piece of one of these homemade dog treats.

"Why am I not surprised." Christen laughs, bringing a hand up to pet the top of Boots' head while the puppy continues to mindlessly munch on the delicious cookie. "It looks like she likes them, though."

"Yeah, she's completely bonkers for them." Tobin laughs. “And they’re pretty easy to make, so I can keep em in the books for the future.”

After a few seconds of watching Boots scarf down the cookie, Tobin finally decides to breach the subject that's been lying beneath the surface.

"I do care about her. I… I actually care about her a lot. Maybe too much…"

Christen opens her mouth to immediately apologize and disregard what she had said in the heat of the moment, but Tobin continues talking.

"I know it might not seem like it, but that's just because I feel like the rug could be pulled out from under us at any moment. I feel like whoever she originally belonged to is gonna come and find her and take her away from us."

With this frail confession spoken out into the air, Christen releases a heavy sigh because it makes complete sense. Because she’s known Tobin long enough now that when the woman loves something, she loves with her entire heart and soul. It’s this way with the truck, with Christen, and now (more apprehensively) their little pooch.

Christen releases a heavy sigh because she went berserk while Tobin was just being cautious where her love is going ‒ just playing it safe to save the integrity of her heart.

The ball is in Christen’s court now. Tobin said what she needed to say and now it’s up to Christen to fix this. 

“I know, baby. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that you don’t care since I know for a fact that you love our lil Boots here.” she says and they both chuckle when the pitbull pup barks in response to hearing her name. 

Tobin easily smiles as an acceptance of the apology. “And I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the right kind of food for her-”

“No, No Tobs.” Christen stops her, shaking her head. She lets her hand gently graze up Tobin's arm, over her tattoo-covered bicep before softly cupping Tobin’s face. “You didn’t do anything. I shouldn’t have made it into such a big deal.”

And Tobin just smiles and leans her head into her girlfriend’s delicate hand, deciding that’s best to just leave it at that now that things have been sufficiently mended

“Plus, I think the homemade peanut butter treats definitely made up for it if you ask her.” Christen adds with a cheeky smile and they chuckle when they look down and see Boots wagging her stubby tail furiously and eyeballing the cookies still left on the baking sheet. 

“Anything for our little pup.” Tobin coos in her doggy voice as she makes her way over to the cookies and brings another one up for Boots to have. The dog almost wiggles out of Tobin’s grasp, practically lunging at the fresh treats in front of her. 

The two women completely pamper Boots for the rest of the night. They play with her and feed her lots and lots of treats and try to teach her some tricks. And they laugh and spend quality time together as something so very close to what could be called a _family_.

And that night, when they’re all cuddled together in a bundle of warmth in their bed, Tobin promptly goes online and takes their “found dog” ad down because she knows that no matter what happens in the future, Boots is theirs. 

Now and forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by the one time i tried to make treats for my dog (they were popsicles and they didnt turn out too great haha)  
> ive been trying to pace myself w uploading cause i dont wanna bombard yall w a ton of stuff all at once, but i thought u deserved a pt. II to the Boots saga sooner rather than later and also...
> 
> ... ive already written the next chap. and im excited and big things r happening but i had to upload this beforehand ;)  
> love to u all <3


	7. Baked Chocolate Mousse (with whipped cream)

Their lives are busy and hectic and chaotic and uncontrollable.

But that’s to be expected. It’s expected and usually navigated through pretty well. 

It’s been almost three years so they should’ve gotten the hang of it at this point. 

Christen’s in the thick of it with her ever so successful career as the national team begins to lay the groundwork towards another World Cup title next year. It's a lot of traveling, lots of long-distance phone calls, lots of pressure and strain and nights of that empty, hollow feeling you get when missing someone with your entire soul. 

It’s a lot of canceled dinner date nights due to unpredictable soreness after a grueling practice and a few weeks at a time of not getting to see each other when Christen’s off helping to defend the national team’s current winning streak. 

But they navigate through it.

Tobin’s been trailing along with the truck as much as she can if Christen has a game within a couple of days' drive away and business is crazy busy when she parks near whatever stadium the game is being held at. The time and distance away make her miss Christen that much more so when date nights are canceled, Tobin’s perfectly fine with just laying around and relaxing with the woman she loves. 

Their new little companion is also just a big of a factor in their lives as they anticipated. Boots seems to be getting bigger and bigger every day and with that, she eats a lot more, has a lot more energy, and seems to become needier and needier. Trying to juggle a very successful food truck and a dog that needs to be fed three meals a day along with a long, tiring run to sufficiently subdue the pooch’s high energy levels, has definitely not been an easy task. It’s a lot of caffeine and endless pairs of running shoes and late nights and almost no social life. It’s unfortunately either weak-ass dinners after a long workday that are so minimal and low-effort that they shouldn’t even be considered dinner or just being too exhausted to eat all together.

It helps that Boots is now old enough and pretty well-trained to bring along when working the truck. The canine has actually become a bit of an unexpected mascot for To’binz Po’boyz after only a few featured posts on their Instagram that wound up gaining a surprising amount of fresh attention. New customers and regulars alike all love when Boots makes an appearance during business hours ‒ always lying adorably and obediently in the shade of the truck’s shadow. Having to care for Boots has made long travel trips a little bit more difficult to plan, but the amount of fun the team has with the dog while on the road seems to always justify the few extra struggles they encounter. 

And when Christen is gone for unfavorable lengths of time, Boots seems to miss her just as much as Tobin does. Needless to say, the moment they all reunite is always filled with beaming smiles, kisses, and furious tail-wagging, which is then typically followed by a homey night in all cuddled up on the couch with popcorn, a rom-com, and fuzzy feelings of love. 

The minutes leading up to that moment ‒ the moment where Tobin can finally press her face into soft curls and breath in her favorite scent of Christen’s shampoo and squeeze her girlfriend’s body tightly as a recurring promise to never let her go ‒ is where Tobin finds herself now. She’s waiting not so patiently outside the car with a tight grip on the leash that Boots is not so patiently pulling against because they’ve been in this very location enough times now that the dog knows exactly who they’re looking for in the crowd spilling out of the clear airport doors. 

Even though it’s getting late into the evening with the sun falling behind the large building, Boots spots her first, barking excitedly at the smiley woman approaching them who has tired but happy eyes. Tobin returns the wide smile and she easily drops Boots’ leash, knowing that the pup has only one destination in mind. Boots beelines to Christen and eagerly collides with her crouched legs ‒ the dog’s tail wagging so much it might just fall off and her slobbery tongue out to search for any reachable part of Christen’s face.

“Hi Boots! Ooo lots and lots of kisses…” Christen coos, immediately dropping her luggage and kneeling down to the dog’s level as her face scrunches up in absolute joy. Her hands scratch and pet all over Boots’ wiggly, gray body while her face gets a plethora of wet dog-kisses. When she peaks an eye open between excited licking, she sees a familiar pair of Jordans in front of her and a hand coming down to pick up Boots’ leash and she can feel her heart thumping against her chest as she stands back up and looks into her favorite, loving, honey-colored eyes. Without a second thought, Christen swings her arms around Tobin’s neck and melts into the way she feels two arms immediately wrap around her waist with just as much haste. 

They’ve been in this exact moment countless times before and it never gets old. 

“Oh wow, I missed you…” Tobin mumbles, not easing her grip in the slightest as the two just hold each other in the middle of the airport parking lot. 

“Not as much as I missed you.”

Tobin eventually pulls away with a huge, face-splitting grin, keeping her arms circled around Christen’s waist. “That’s a big claim, love.” She goes in for a much longer kiss than before and both of them sigh into it with their entire bodies and their entire souls. 

_Feels like home._

Eager barking from below brings them out of this settling moment of bliss and they look down to see Boots staring up at them with energetic blue eyes and a windshield wiper tail. 

“I guess I’m not the only one wanting to get you home for some nightly cuddles.” Tobin chuckles, smoothing her hand over the pooch’s head in acknowledgment before handing the leash to Christen. She devotedly slings the woman’s duffle over her shoulder and grabs the gigantic rolling suitcase next to them. 

“Actually…” Christen begins as they make their way over to Tobin’s car. “I was thinking maybe we could go out somewhere fancy for dinner?”

Tobin quirks her eyebrow at this request while she loads all of Christen’s stuff in the truck. The usual plan when Christen gets back, especially after a long afternoon flight, is to bunker down at home for the rest of the night with maybe some takeout and definitely some cuddles. Sure, they’ll go out the following days and live it up, but the first night back has always been the time to “hard chill”, as Tobin coined it.

When Tobin finishes unloading and plops herself into the driver’s seat, she instinctively looks to the back seat to make sure Boots is comfortable before turning her attention back to her girlfriend ‒ whose eyes are so droopy it looks like she could pass out any second now. 

“You don’t just wanna hard chill at home? Aren’t you tired babe?” Tobin asks as she brings her hand up to lightly comb her fingers through dark curls. 

Christen practically purrs at the sensation, but she fights to keep her eyes open and insists, “I’m a little tired, but I also wanna go out with you tonight. Maybe we can just take a quick nap before dinner.”

Tobin waits for a second or two, searching in those emerald eyes for any other reason or motive. But when nothing all too concerning comes to the surface, she shrugs and starts up the car. “Alrighty then.” she agrees because it doesn’t _really_ matter to her what they wind up doing, as long as she gets to snuggle into Christen’s body at some point in the night. “Where were you thinking?”

“Leigh’s at 7?” Christen answers immediately. When Tobin whips her head to the side in surprise at such an instant reply, Christen explains, almost shyly, “I already made the reservation before I boarded.”

“Is there something specific you want from there?” Tobin questions because she can’t think of any other reason why Christen would want to ensure a seat at one of the classiest, most upscale restaurants in Los Angeles. 

Christen just shrugs with an uninformative expression. “Nope. We just haven’t been there in a while so I thought it might be fun to go back again.”

“True, I guess.” Tobin replies. She considers the main reason as to why they haven’t gone back is because it’s so fancy that there really hasn’t been any reason to. The last time they had dined there was with Christen’s parents when they went to celebrate the older couple’s recent marriage anniversary. It was a wine and dine moment and, while Tobin isn’t against going there again tonight, it does feel a bit out of the blue. But she decides to just go with it and silently wonders where her go-to “dressing up for an occasion” outfit is.

 _Probably buried somewhere in the back of my closet…_

The family of three drive through the city towards home with the two women chatting about Christen’s recent victorious game and how the truck is doing and any other events or plans that come to mind now that conversation isn’t frustratingly staggered from facetime’s technology issues. When they arrive and everyone and everything is unloaded from the car, Tobin has to resist the auto-pilot urge to call up their favorite Chinese takeout spot, switch on a mindless movie, and burrow into the couch.

Luckily, since they have a few hours until their reservation, they all get in their usual homecoming cuddles with Christen’s suggested power nap for an hour or so. After the much needed time to refresh, a more energized Christen decides that it’s time to get dolled up for their fancy night out. Tobin reluctantly gets up as well and starts getting ready, knowing that if they’re eating at a place like Leigh’s, they’re going to have to look the part. 

Tobin finishes getting ready first because once she found her fancy fit (which was in fact, buried deep in the back of the closet), it took her all of two minutes to put it on. She’s playing with Boots in the living room as she waits, trying to tire the dog out a bit. She was surprised once again when Christen had informed her earlier that she already called their good friend Kyle Krieger to watch after Boots for the night. 

Eventually, she hears the slow clicking of heels against the tile floor of the staircase. She stands from the couch, throwing one of Boots’ toys across the room to distract the pup, before brushing the dog hair off of her sleek, black slacks and the front of her long sleeve shirt (to hide the tattoos that would surely be regarded as inappropriate and grungy for where they’re going to dine). After adjusting the opening edges of her thin cocoon coat, Tobin looks up when the clicking of heels stops at the bottom of the stairs. In turning her head, her jaw nearly drops to the floor because only Christen Press could win an international friendly, sit through a tortuously long flight, and somehow look like an absolute goddess in a slim, dark turquoise gown ‒ all in 48 hours. 

“How are you even real right now?” Tobin mutters, her brain unable to connect to her body, which leaves her frozen in place like a statue. 

Christen giggles as she takes it upon herself to close the distance between them. “You’re looking pretty fine yourself, love.” 

When she’s just within an arm's length away, Tobin hastily grabs onto Christen’s waist and pulls her into a long, bruising kiss. They detach after a few seconds with very satisfied smiles and heavy breathing and their reservation on the brink of being completely forgotten. 

“God, did I mention how much I missed you?” Tobin jokes with wide, almost dazed eyes.

“Hmm.. maybe?” Christen teases back. She leans in to give one short kiss to Tobin’s lips before moving away to grab her purse on the kitchen island. “Are you hungry?”

“Yea, I’m actually starving, to be honest.” Tobin responds and the questioning look from Christen leads her to explain, “I was in such a rush this morning to get Boots to the groomer that I forgot breakfast and… I think I got home really late last night and forgot dinner…”

“Tobin!”

With a bit of a chuckle at how Christen’s motherly tendencies are flaring up right now, Tobin says, “I know, I know. Time just gets away from me...”

Christen sighs as she walks back over to loosely grab her girlfriend’s hands. She knows Tobin would work herself into her own grave and Christen has a nagging concern whenever she’s away about Tobin keeping good care of herself. She knows that the woman is a grown adult and doesn’t need to be parented by any means, but Christen just feels a bit better when she knows for a fact that Tobin’s got some food in her stomach and adequate sleep and all that. 

Which is just another reason to add to the long list of why Christen hates being apart from Tobin for prolonged trips. 

“Babe. If anyone knows the importance of a healthy diet, it’s you.” Christen says as she stares into understanding hazel eyes. A playful grin tugs on her lips when she adds, “I mean, you made me guzzle down a green juice every morning for a while there. Don’t you make me start doing that to you.” 

Tobin chuckles at the memory of the infamous daily green juice and the grimaces that would follow. “Talk about the tables turning on me.” she jokes before giving her caring girlfriend a thankful little kiss. “I’ll try to make more of an effort to be good, babe. I promise.”

“Not _too_ good, though.” Christen says with a wink and Tobin feels like someone turned up the heater in the house with the blush that smears onto her cheeks. 

_I love this woman…_ she thinks to herself before deciding to just say it out loud.

“I love you too.” Christen replies as she slowly moves her hand up a lean, muscled bicep and snakes around Tobin’s neck to bring her into another steamy, drawn-out kiss. They continue these slow, languid kisses in the middle of the living room like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be (because there is in fact nowhere else they’d rather be).

Luckily for their dinner plans, they’re interrupted by a startling ring of the doorbell. Reluctantly, they head to the door to let Kyle in, hoping that their swollen lips and slightly wrinkled clothing isn’t too telling of their make-out sesh seconds ago, but by the way Kyle walks in with a knowing smirk, they know that they’ve been made.

They leave with some goodbye kisses from Boots and a thank you to Kyle before getting in the car and heading towards the restaurant. Because they had been a bit... _sidetracked_ , they arrive later than their reservation was made out for, but to their luck, a waiter still leads them to their table at a more secluded, private area than when they had dined here before. Christen is thankful that she has the financial capabilities to be able to get them a table at a place like this and Tobin is thankful that there’s already a selected spread ready to be served with how loud her stomach is grumbling. 

The first dish that’s given to them is more of an hors d’oeuvre, consisting of a small prawn sesame salad. While it doesn’t do much to satisfy Tobin’s hunger, it’s nonetheless delicious and the chef in her is still able to appreciate the masterful method of preparation. Christen has to hold in a boisterous laugh when Tobin practically inhales the salad in two easy mouthfuls. In her defense, it was a pretty small proportion size anyway. 

The main dish is a cedar-planked salmon fillet with seasoned rice and flavorful roasted asparagus. It’s much more filling than the first course and Christen can’t help how her eyes flutter closed at how downright smooth and delicious the meal is. They both gobble the food up with content smiles and they barely have time to even talk between stuffing their faces (while doing so as elegantly as possible because they haven’t forgotten how classy the restaurant they’re in truly is.)

For their dessert, Tobin almost drools instantly as the server presents two plates of baked chocolate mousse, topped with an exquisite dollop of whipped cream and a thinly cut, stylized strawberry slice. 

“Wow.” Tobin mutters in awe, still feeling that slightly empty feeling in her stomach from forgetting to eat for part of yesterday and almost all of today. “You tryin to get lucky tonight or something?” she teases, smirking at Christen as she picks up her spoon and gets ready to dive in. 

Christen laughs but doesn’t pick up her spoon with the same urgency as Tobin. She simply gazes, biting her bottom lip almost nervously and Tobin doesn’t know exactly how to read the expression on her face. 

But Tobin _does_ know what her stomach wants right now and that is to eat this no-doubt life-changing chocolate mousse as soon as possible. So she gives the oddly silent woman across from her a loving smile before scooping a hefty piece of the dessert in her spoon and making sure to get all components ‒ part of the whipped cream and the strawberry slice for a complete, justifiable bite. 

“Tobin…” Christen begins to say with a dreamy sigh. 

“Hmmm?” Tobin hums as she brings the large bite to her awaiting mouth and easily cleans the spoon off. It’s more heavenly than she could ever imagine, her taste buds immediately being hit by every tingling flavor. It’s so rich and velvety and it’s the perfect mix of textures and the whip cream adds a light, subtle sweetness and-

“ _Ow._ ” Tobin mumbles because the life-changing experience of the dessert has been painfully interrupted by a hard chunk of… something. “Did they sneak a pecan or a seed in there or something? Damn near broke a molar…” she says before uncomfortably swallowing the bite. _It’s a real shame when you’re eating something so, so fantastic, only to have it be ruined by one little bump in the road..._

While recovering from such a rollercoaster of a tasting experience, Tobin looks up and is surprised to see Christen now with wide, fearful eyes and her mouth agape. 

“What? Did you get a weird, hard nub thing in yours too?” Tobin asks, hoping that Christen’s tasting experience was much more enjoyable than hers because she’s pretty sure someone in the kitchen must have goofed something up in the preparation of this chocolate mousse.

Christen doesn’t respond, her mouth still open in shock and her eyes boring holes into Tobin’s skull. It’s actually kind of concerning and Tobin can feel her heart rate begin to gradually increase. 

“Chris? A-are you okay?” she questions, grabbing and gently shaking Christen’s hand again to try and break her out of this scary trance. 

After a minute, Christen can only stutter out a broken sentence, eyeing down at Tobin’s partially eaten dessert. “T-tobin… you… d-did you just…”

“Did I what?” Tobin presses, now completely alarmed over the jumble of words her girlfriend could barely sputter out. 

“Y-you… you…” Christen tries to start. “You swallowed it.” she’s finally able to say. 

Tobin’s eyebrows pinch together because nothing is making sense right now and her head is spinning with so much confusion and panic that she thinks she might pass out. “What? The mousse? Chris, what are you-”

“The ring.”

~~~

  
  
_“Yeah… 7 is perfect, thank you so much… okay… Well, I hope she says yes as well...alright… bye.”_

_Christen hangs up the phone with a victorious grin and an energetic buzz in her entire body. She stares out the window of the bus, admiring the beautiful scenery passing by on the way to the field, but for once, she’s focused more on the dinner reservation she just made many hours from now instead of their approaching international friendly._

_“What’s on your mind Chris?” Crystal asks, peering over the back of the seat from the row behind and noticing the upbeat attitude of the forward after her phone call._

_Everyone on the team knows that, at this point, they’d usually find Christen quietly meditating in her seat ‒ getting zoned in and staying present in the moment to prepare for the game. But the blinding smile she’s currently wearing, while not undesirable or anything, is a teller of something different._

_“Just happy.” Christen answers simply. When Crystal's unimpressed expression tells her that the short explanation isn’t enough for one of her closest friends on the national team, Christen adds with a bit more enthusiasm and a slightly whispered tone, “I just made a reservation at a really fancy place in LA for Tobin and I when we get back… and I think I’m gonna finally do it.”_

_“ ‘It’?!” Crystal repeats eagerly, her eyebrows shooting up because she knows exactly what her friend’s referring to after many, many hours of discussion on the subject. She now completely understands what’s got Christen is such a cheery mood._

_Christen just nods like an energetic little kid and it makes Crystal squeal at the discovery. “Oh my god! Christen!” she all but yells, luckily only drawing the attention of a couple of other team members at the noise. After Christen shushes her a little, not wanting everyone to know quite yet, Crystal quickly moves around to slip into the empty seat beside Christen. “This is so exciting! Do you have a plan yet? Like how you’re going to do it and everything?” she asks rapidly, her eyes wide and bright._

_“Yeah, I have a bit of a plan.” Christen starts, thinking about the conversation she just had with the Leigh’s restaurant manager. “I know it’s kind of cliché, but I think I’m going to have them place the ring so it’s displayed in the middle of the last course.” she begins, her hand gestures already going wild as she explains her big, master plan._

_“_ _I paid for the table and the three courses already and the manager said that we’ll be served baked chocolate mousse with whipped cream for dessert, so if we can put the ring dead center in the middle of the whipped cream or something, I’m thinking she looks down. Sees it. She’ll probably make some dumb joke about a mistake in the kitchen because she’s Tobin and she can.” Christen continues with a light laugh. “And then I’ll grab it from her plate, do the whole traditional, down-on-one-knee thing, and propose.”_

 _At this point, Crystal is absolutely giddy with so much excitement it almost rivals Christen’s. “Chrissy!” she exclaims much more quietly than before, but with even more energy. She pulls her friend into a tight hug that makes them both smile widely. Crystal leans back and practically melts as the described plan_ ‒ _the described fantasy_ ‒ _really settles in. “Talk about traditional, huh?” she teases a bit, knowing that Tobin and Christen’s relationship, in general, is everything but traditional._

 _Christen sighs in acknowledgment. She can hardly believe it’s finally happening herself_ ‒ _that she’s finally doing it, especially in such a clear-cut, conventional, and traditional way. But it feels right and, if she’s being honest with herself, way past due. She’s known Tobin for over three years and they’ve been dating for almost as much time._

_The only reason she hasn’t popped the question is that she’s never found the right time or moment to do so. Their fast-paced lives never leave a whole lot of room for such a big, life-changing event. When Christen’s not playing any soccer games, she’s training. And when she’s not training for soccer games, she’s doing some sort of recovery so that we can get back to playing. In the tiny increments of time where none of those things are happening, she’s traveling or doing media or attending galas and red carpets._

_And Tobin’s been just as busy with her own business as well. Despite the efforts and offers from Lindsey and Emily, Tobin always insists on getting up at an ungodly hour to get supplies ready for the truck and drive it to whatever location they’ve planned for the day. Granted, she’s become a tiny bit more detached from actually working in the truck ever since they’ve hired a few new employees to the team. But even so, she’s constantly working behind the scenes ‒ planning trips and handling administrative tasks and coordinating different strategies to continually keep progressing the business._

_All of these different aspects of life have kept Christen from even thinking too seriously about proposing. But Tobin is serious to her. And after talking with Crystal and Pinoe and many others on both the national team and her club team, Christen came to the realization that, in her line of work, there’s never going to be some perfect, ideal time. She has to take it upon herself to make time. Because she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she wants to spend the rest of her life with Tobin. It’s a fact that she’s known for a while now and it's a fact that she’s ready to solidify with a ring, a ceremony, and the love of her life._

_And she’s beyond excited._

~~~

Christen is beyond modified at the events that have just unfolded. 

“Ring?” Tobin mutters, now looking just as bewildered but much more confused. 

Before anything else can happen ‒ before anything else can go oh so terribly wrong ‒ Christen grabs Tobin’s partially eaten dessert, dumping it in front of her (while disregarding her own untouched chocolate mousse that’s now been squashed) and grabs her spoon to search and search and comb through and completely maul this expertly crafted dessert ‒ only to confirm the daunting truth. 

And with a wrecked chocolate mousse, the strawberry slice long gone and the beautifully whipped cream splattered around the plate, Christen, unfortunately, gets the confirmation she definitely didn’t want. 

“Baby, what’s the matter? What ring…” Tobin asks with worry as she watches Christen wordlessly lean back in her chair with a stressed, defeated sigh ‒ her hands dragging slowly down her face. 

_Oh shit!_ Christen suddenly realizes. 

She pops right back up, jarring Tobin for what seems like the millionth time, and hastily grabs the woman’s hand as she springs out of her chair. “Tobin, we have to get you to the hospital!” she exclaims, tugging on Tobin’s arm to get her up and moving ‒ their previous efforts to fit into the calm, classy atmosphere of the restaurant now completely gone to waste. 

“What?!” Tobin shouts with even more confusion (if that’s possible at this point). But before she can truly question anything, Christen is dragging them out of the restaurant.

“I’ll explain everything in the car!” Christen yells back as the two whizz through the restaurant, almost knocking over some servers and a few other guests. “But we need to book it to the hospital!”

Without question, Tobin follows Christen to the front of the restaurant as the valet (who must have seen the sheer distress in the two women’s eyes), unquestioningly brings Tobin’s car around in seconds. The two pile in and just as Tobin opens her mouth to say something, Christen yells “Tobin! Hospital! Now!” 

And Tobin immediately sinks her foot onto the gas pedal.

~~~

“So if you look here,” the doctor says, who’s white lab coat reads C. Stoney in embroidered cursive. “That right there is the ring.”

And she really didn’t need to point at the spot on the x-ray because, clear as day, there’s a ring-shaped object in the illuminated image of Tobin’s body. Tobin studies the x-ray pensively and looks down at her abdomen with concern, as if she’s able to see the ring through her body. Apparently, it’s not too far down into the base of her stomach yet and though Tobin hasn’t taken an anatomy class in eons, it strangely looks like it's floating higher up in her body than she would have expected… which is pretty freaky. 

“Luckily you didn’t choke on it, which is the main issue we would face in this type of situation. But like most things we eat, the ring should be able to pass on its own.” She explains with such a straight face that Christen wonders if this isn’t the first time she’s had someone come in who’s swallowed an engagement ring before. “So… you can share as little or as much with me, but how did this happen?”

A beat-red blush immediately slaps onto Christen’s face. “Umm… funny story I guess…” she says with a half-hearted chuckle. 

“So I was planning on proposing as you could probably guess from the, um, engagement ring.” she starts and Dr. Stoney nods her head quietly as she listens. “And I had them put the ring in the middle of our dessert. It was… um, a baked chocolate mousse with whipped cream.” she continues, now mindlessly picking off nonexistent pieces of fluff on the long dress she still has on. “We wound up arriving a little late to our reservation and, uh, all the food had probably already been made, or at least partly made. And the ring was put in the middle of the whipped cream and I think the extra time from us being late made it sink into the cream… so Tobin didn’t see it when the waiter served it to us.” Christen clears her throat uncomfortably before concluding, “And so she ate a kinda big bite without realizing there was the engagement ring in there.”

Dr. Stoney’s face remains impressively unchanged as she listens to this story. She doesn’t falter at any point during Christen’s shy explanation. “I see…” she says before seeming to accept what’s happened and casually continuing her patient care. “So Tobin, you’re going to want to eat foods that are high in fiber to try and get things moving. And if it isn’t naturally excreted on its own, then you should come back here so we can check it out.”

“Thank you, Doctor Stoney.” Tobin says with a slightly embarrassed but also slightly amused smile.

“Of course.” she returns. “Would you like a pamphlet on some various foods you should try to eat?”

Tobin wants to laugh because she’s well aware of the nutritional properties of most foods, having had to cook for top-tier athletes in her previous profession. But she’s also afraid that laughing too hard will somehow make the ring lodge itself into her stomach and kill her. 

So she simply shakes her head with a small smile. “No thanks.”

“Okay, well I hope things work themselves out but if not, you’re always welcome to come here so we can try to help.” Dr. Stone says supportively before exiting the room. 

Both Tobin and Christen let out a heavy sigh because this is definitely not where they thought they’d be at the end of the night. Slowly, Christen moves in front of where Tobin’s seated on the patient bed, delicately placing her hands on top of the woman’s thighs. She doesn’t look up ‒ doesn’t think her heart can take looking into those warm, hazel eyes with how humiliated she feels. 

To her surprise, she hears a soft chuckle bubble out of Tobin’s throat and her own puzzlement is enough to get her to lift her head and see what Tobin could possibly think is funny right now. And just as Christen suspected, she instantly gets drawn into those warm eyes that are nothing if not completely loving. 

“You’re adorable, ya know that?” Tobin whispers with an out of place grin because she’s in a hospital right now because she accidentally swallowed the ring that Christen was planning on proposing with. 

Christen just lightly scoffs and looks away again because how could those be the words coming out of Tobin’s mouth right now. 

“Hey.” Tobin says, trying to get the woman’s attention again. She gently grazes her hands up and down Christen’s arms to try and coax those green eyes to look back at her. After a few stubborn seconds, Christen finally looks up and Tobin doesn’t know whether she wants to hug the woman for looking so adorably flustered at the moment or because she really went for _the_ classic engagement that ended with them in a hospital room. Whatever the cause, Tobin doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around Christen’s neck in a tight hug. When she feels two smaller arms slide securely around her body, she mumbles, “You’re adorable and I’ve missed you and I love you.”

She feels Christen let out a heavy sigh against her body. “I’m so sorry Tobin.” 

Tobin immediately pulls back to look at Christen square on. “Don’t you dare apologize, Christen Press.” she states firmly but with a soft tone as she recognizes the shame written on the woman’s face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is your fault. Your intentions were in the right place, babe.” 

“It doesn’t matter what my intentions were! You swallowed a frickin ring and now it’s in your stomach and you have to…” Christen pauses while gesturing her hands in the air, unable to let herself explicitly describe the reality of the situation. “... ‘let it pass’.” she finally says, quoting the doctor. “And thankfully Kyle says he can take Boots for the rest of the night but still, I… this whole mess… ” Christen ends her speaking efforts with a long, defeated sigh. 

Tobin knows that there’s not much she can say to put Christen completely at ease. She’s always been the type of person that tries to distract a person with fun activities as a method of comforting them, not necessarily sitting down and talking through it. She sighs as well, trying to think of what to do as she stares past Christen’s shoulder at the bright, tinted blue x-ray of the ring currently resting in her stomach that’s really supposed to be on her finger ‒ which feels surreal to think about. 

But then, an electric idea sparks into her mind, lighting up her insides like the lightbox behind her x-ray image. 

Without saying anything, she grabs ahold of one of Christen’s hands, making the woman look up to inspect Tobin’s action. She sits up on the patient bed, straightening her spine and lengthening her torso with pristine posture. After taking another glance at her x-ray, she guides Christen’s hand that she’s holding over to press about where she thinks the ring is currently inside her stomach. Christen questioningly lets her hand be taken near the left side of Tobin’s rib cage until she stops and Tobin presses their conjoined hands into the spot. Christen’s palm now completely covers the area and she can feel the woman’s abs contract under her hand and the slow movement of Tobin’s ribs as she breathes. With a satisfied grin, Tobin keeps both of her hands flat on top of Christen’s and she looks back up to read into the woman’s confused eyes. 

“Do it.” Tobin says with an encouraging smile, the words being adamant but the delivery of them being tender. “Propose.”

Christen gives a small smile back but bashfully shakes her head. “I get what you’re doing but-”

“Christen.” Tobin shamelessly interrupts, her eyes big and pleading. “Please? For me?” she insists. 

A heavy, cautious sigh comes out of Christen again because this is definitely not how her plan was supposed to go and this is not how she wanted to propose to the love of her life. But as she stares into Tobin’s puppy-dog eyes, she knows she can’t say no. 

So she presses her hand a bit firmer into Tobin’s abdomen as if doing so will get her that much closer to the ring that she’s supposed to be holding in a moment like this, and she starts the inevitable speech that’s been anxiously devouring her insides for the last 48 hours. 

“Tobin,” She begins, looking right into the eyes of the woman in front of her. “It’d be lying if I said that you haven’t been the greatest blessing in my life. You came at a time of a lot of struggle. I was still shaking off my first injury, LAFC was fighting to win their first NWSL title, and I didn’t even realize how suffocating and pressure-filled my life had become. And I was carrying this enormous weight on my shoulders that, in the moment, I didn’t even realize I had because I told myself that the feeling was normal. That it came with the job. I was too focused on trying to perfect every single little aspect of my life that I wasn’t even consciously aware of how much of a toll it was taking on me.” She pauses for a second to really take in all of Tobin's attentive features. “But then you came. And you lifted that weight that I hadn’t noticed off of me and I finally felt like I could breathe. I could breathe fully and freely and to this day, I don’t know how you do it. I can’t pinpoint the exact thing about you or the exact thing that you do that makes me feel so alive except just… being _you_.”

“But what I can pinpoint and what I know for sure is that I don’t want to go another second without you there by my side.” Christen declares, unshed tears of happiness starting to well on the edges of her eyes. “I want your amazing cooking abilities and your dumb jokes…” They both laugh lightly and Christen brings her other hand up to stack on top of Tobin’s before taking a deep breath. “And I want the opportunity to show you every day how _grateful_ I am that I get to do life with you, no matter how busy and hectic and chaotic and uncontrollable it is.” At this point, both of them are smiling like fools with glossy eyes and runways of tears streaming down their faces. 

“So Tobin.” Christen says, clearing her throat to keep any more tears at bay until she can get this last, very crucial part of her speech out. She presses into Toby’s body as much as she can without tipping the woman over. “Will you do me the greatest honor in becoming my wife?”

Tobin doesn’t think her smile could possibly get any wider. She can’t help herself as she surges forward, connecting their lips in a wet, sloppy, passionate kiss. When they pull back, only a centimeter away and gasping slightly, Tobin mutters with the utmost certainty in the entire world:

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by all the good shit that some awesome writers have been providing so far this holiday season. ik this aint no xmas os, but i hope yall enjoyed nonetheless. i wanted to try to do this special moment justice cause theres big things planned for the future ;)
> 
> cheers to all <3


	8. Smoked Pigs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *so i usually dont add notes in the beginning of these but idk if i should add a warning that this chap talks about pigs and butchering and stuff. it never gets too nitty gritty at all but i do cover it and im vegetarian and i know people r (rightfully) sensitive to that kinda stuff
> 
> so... uve been warned? idk...

“No. There’s no-”

“Babe.

“-way you’re doing _that_ -

“Chris.”

“-in _our_ kitchen.”

Tobin stares across the table at Christen with a questioning smirk and wide, hopeful eyes but the woman remains unfazed. It’s a funny contrast of Christen’s stern, unyielding expression and the two being surrounded by all of the bright, cheery Christmas decorations in the house ‒ the recently set up strings of lights, the two trees that Tobin insisted upon having ( _“Baby! If there’s enough space in the living room, why wouldn’t we put two trees there?”_ ), the number of random Christmas-themed statues and stuffed animals that just… _appeared_. 

When Tobin had moved into Christen’s house, she brought all of her Christmas decorations from her apartment (a full three boxes packed to the brim) and the second it was officially December first, said decorations exploded inside the house. There were enough decorations to cover practically every surface of Christen’s home and she genuinely wondered how on earth Tobin even managed to fit so much stuff in her small, studio apartment before. 

So now they sit in the extensively holiday-themed dining room with their lunches eaten, discussing their game plan for their big Christmas party. With a rare but welcomed break in both of their day-to-day tasks, they decided to have a nice, cozy afternoon together ‒ a nice walk around to the park with Boots before sharing a stomach-warming pot of creamy lentil soup for lunch. Everything was going smoothly as they started covering the details and schedule of their party, but they’ve now hit a bump in the road. 

After a deafening minute, Tobin finally breaks the standoff silence and exclaims, “I gotta do it!”

“No. I’m not letting you butcher and smoke two _entire_ pigs in our kitchen!” Christen states. “I can’t believe you would even want to do that. What happened to a more plant-based diet. Save the environment! Save the human race! Save the animals!” she continues to proclaim and Tobin just chuckles at the woman’s theatrics. 

“Chris, you _know_ that I’m all about plant-based. That’s why the pig platter is the one and only meat dish on the menu!” she rebuttals, earning her an acknowledging nod. With that tiny break in Christen’s so far unbudging stance, Tobin makes her big move by shifting her chair a bit closer and lightly taking Christen’s hand from where it’s crossed over her chest to tangling their fingers together in a gentle hold on the table. To really lay it on thick, she steadies her voice and gives her biggest, best puppy dog eyes (a method she’s definitely perfected by watching Boots). “But this is the first time we’ll have everybody together.” she reminds. “And I know that _my_ family’s a bit more traditional with the holidays and I know that _your_ family is too. So we gotta have a traditional centerpiece animal.”

Christen lets out a sullen sigh but tightens her fingers in Tobin’s so that they’re effectively holding hands. “I know, I get that.” she begins to say, calming down instantly from where their conversation was beginning to flare up. “But do you really need two little piggies? Like, why can’t you just buy an already demolished piggy from the store?” 

Tobin raises their hands to kiss the soft, warm skin on the back of Christen’s hand. She’s relieved that they’ve made it past the “convincing” portion of the discussion and are now onto the “compromising” part. Thankfully, that’s how most of their bickers usually go. There are some uncontrollable hand gestures, a raised voice or two, and then it tends to settle just as quickly as it starts. 

“There’s nothing quite like a freshly smoked pig babe.” Tobin argues calmly, knowing that the fact that they’re discussing the consumption of two entire mammals is pulling at Christen’s empathetic heartstrings (if the woman’s descriptive choice of vocabulary is any indication). “Plus, Sonnett is already really psyched about getting to prepare some pigs. You know she’s got those southern roots.” 

“I just… don’t want all the butchering and cutting and mauling and stuff to happen in the kitchen… ”

Tobin waits for a second to ponder. After a second she suggests, “Even though we’d only technically be cutting into one of the pigs, how about I set it all up in the garage or something? Son and I will do all the prep in there and then we’ll transfer all the pieces back to the kitchen.”

She can see Christen physically grimace at the term “pieces”, but after a moment of thought, she reluctantly agrees with a nod and a huge, victorious smile grows on Tobin’s face. 

Half of the garage has already unofficially been made into a mosh pit of all of Tobin’s crazy endeavors (starting with the truck renovation and since then, she’s slowly turned it into an experimental lab for all of her cooking experiments or anything that could cause too much of a mess, so it’s already well-stocked with a few kitchen supplies).

This is the very first Christmas party where, not only would their friends be there, but _both_ of their respective families have also somehow been able to find a way to be in attendance. For the past few years, they’ve hosted a holiday party with their friends, only to spend actual Christmas with one of their families (usually switching which family to visit each year). But this year, the stars have aligned and all the usual Press’ RSVPed along with all of the usual Heaths. 

It was an amazing feat in itself when Tobin and Christen heard back from them all. Until it all settled in and they realized that their usual party attendance would now be at least doubled and the party would have a lot more elderly folks thrown in the mix. It’s not that their holiday parties were ragers or anything, but they definitely failed to stick with the traditional “sit down and have a feast” sort of structure. Past parties have shown that it can get pretty loud, especially when you get Emily, Lindsey, and Mal in the same room. But besides a few possible dropped plates or drunkenly knocking over a Christmas tree or two, it stays relatively relaxed. Their attending friends never seem to mind filling their stomachs with an array of small little hand-held snacks that they’d prepare or have others bring. So far, as long as they had some quality boos, there haven’t been any complaints. 

But this year, they knew they had to step it up a notch with their families coming. At the news of their attendance, Tobin got right into crafting the perfect spread of food to prepare and serve the abundance of guests, and Christen’s very, very grateful that she’ll never have to experience the infamous Christmas party cooking stress that everyone’s mothers seem to undergo every year. And luckily, Tobin’s remarkably level-headed in the kitchen, considering the circumstances she puts herself through. 

This year will surely test those limits, though. 

“So everyone arrives at like 12. Hang around till 6 and then make everyone leave. Then sit-down dinner with family at 7?” Christen says, laying out the final details of their party. Tobin smiles at how completely type A Christen is as she grabs both of their empty bowls and lays a quick kiss to Christen’s forehead on her way to standing and walking to the kitchen. 

“Sounds like a plan, Stan!” she yells back over her shoulder. 

And Christen chuckles as she hears the faucet water turn and the pleasantly domestic sounds of dishes starting to be washed. 

~~~

Their party attendance has gradually grown after the few years of hosting Christmas parties. Christen would love to think that the growing popularity is due to how well she decorates her house and how friendly everyone is and the prime quality of the party she’s able to plan and host. 

But she knows that the main reason everyone comes and everyone’s friends come and everyone’s friend’s friend comes is because of the food. Ever since word got out about the abundant and heavenly spread of food being made and brought by guests (many of the guests being somehow associated with the food industry all thanks to dating someone who has some sort of connection with all the chefs and restaurants in the area), their numbers have grown and grown and grown so large that instead of having everyone in the living room, they now have to utilize their front yard and backyard space too. 

It’s definitely tough in the wintertime, but with some excellent planning and communication skills, Christen also makes sure she has enough heaters rented, she’s since installed a couple of outdoor fireplaces, and, as it turns out, the sheer amount of people who now come to their Christmas party is enough body heat to add some extra heat to the environment. The endless flow of hot chocolate also seems to help.

With both Tobin and Christen’s families coming to the party this year, they’ve decided that it’d only be right if they had a nice sit-down type of dinner with their families. To try and add this into their plans, they shifted their usual 6-11 party time frame with their friends to more of an afternoon/lunch get together. After shamelessly kicking everyone except family members out, they’ll have a good ol’ traditional Christmas dinner with the Heaths and the Press’. 

It’s a foolproof plan. Kinda. In theory. With hopefulness. 

While this isn’t the first time the two families have met or even had a meal all together, this is the very first time they’ve all gotten together in the spirit of the master holiday known as _Christmas_. The Press pack has always stayed on the west while the Heaths have always stayed on the east. But this year, everyone’s free to mosey on down to Christen’s house for some holly-jolly Christmas lovin’. 

~~~

Christen’s buried in stress when she hears the doorbell ring and she’s hoping it’s the person she’s been expecting because if anything is off the mark at this point, she’ll lose it. This happens every year ‒ Christen going into crazy mode trying to perfect all the details of the party even though it turns out to be a joyful success every year. She rushes to the door and, luckily for her sanity, it is the person she’s hoping it would be. 

The person who’s ten minutes late and subsequently threw off her entire plan for the day. 

When she swings the door wide open in one vicious motion, Emily Sonnett is almost knocked off the doorstep by the sudden gust of wind. What’s even more startling is how frazzled and exhausted Christen already looks at 10 am with strands of curly hair fallen from her messy bun and her glasses about a millimeter away from slipping off her nose. 

“You’re late.” is all Christen says to the woman before leaving the door open and marching right back into the house to wordlessly signal for Emily to follow.

“Good morning, Chris. I see the wonderful holiday spirit has really got you in a chokehold this morning.” Emily teases as she meanders in with her cup of coffee in hand, bending down to pet Boots who came eagerly rushing to her feet. 

Christen just rolls her eyes and when she turns to glare at Emily, the southern chef promises to postpone any further potential jabs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she says, placing her cup on the kitchen counter and removing her thick, winter coat. “You know early mornings are tough for me to make. Hell, you’d never see me at my _own_ restaurant before noon.”

To this, Christen stays quiet and just accepts the reasoning because: (1) she knows it’s a fact that mornings and Emily don’t mix (as told many times by an annoyed Tobin Heath) and (2) she really doesn’t have the energy to invest anymore commentary into this topic. Her brain’s onto the next possible thing that could go wrong today. So she does what she does on the pitch and brushes it off, now focused on getting back on track. 

“Tobin’s waiting for you in the back. She’s been really excited about these pigs.” she says mindlessly, not even listening to the words coming out of her mouth as she brushes stray wisps of hair out of her face and busily stares at her phone.

“Oh honey, lemme tell you. _I’m_ excited about these pigs.” Emily says with a smirk. “And I was able to get my mitts on the perfect set of pigs.” 

Right on cue, Tobin walks in. Her hair is in a loose half-bun, looking just as haggard as Christen but with a much more upbeat demeanor, and her khaki-colored apron is already covered in different streaks of unknown stuff. There’s a thin sheen of sweat covering her forehead and her tattooed skin and her eyes light up a million watts when she spots Emily in the kitchen.

“Did you get the pigs?” she asks excitedly as she quickly approaches the two. She stops on the way to give Christen a quick, acknowledging kiss on the forehead but the woman doesn’t even flinch as she intensely stares down at receipts on her phone, too focused to pay attention to anything else (and Tobin, also too focused on her own task, doesn’t seem to notice her action being unreciprocated either.)

“Whatever happened to ‘hi’s’ and ‘hello’s’ in this household?” Emily says, ignoring the small but amused smile coming from Tobin. “Do you just come home and say ‘Christen. Dinner. Eat. Now.’?”

“No, I don’t sound like a frickin caveman.” Tobin chuckles, her mood being too excited to be tarnished by Emily’s witty quips. 

Emily easily smiles back and the two greet with a quick hug before getting down to business. “Yeah, I got Peppa and George in my truck-”

“Ew, Em!” Christen scolds, her zeroed-in attention suddenly being broken.

Emily and Tobin just laugh, knowing how sensitive the topic is for a certain someone in the room. 

“C’mon, now.” Tobin dismisses with a laugh, gesturing towards the front door. She gives a short but sweet “thank you for letting me smoke two piglets” kiss to Christen’s lips before heading out. 

The two chefs make their way out to Emily’s truck, chatting at a million miles an hour on the details of how they're going to smoke these pigs. Once Emily opens the tailgate of her truck, she pulls out both of the small, suckling piglets, each wrapped in hazy-clear plastic bags. 

“So did you get them from that guy I told you about?” Tobin asks as she inspects as much as she can see of the pigs. 

Emily gives a low chuckle with a disapproving shake of her head. “Oh, Toby. You know I don’t trust anyone around here to get me the best of the best.” she comments. She lifts one of the plastic-covered pigs into her arms and Tobin follows suit with the other. “When it comes to swine, I trust one man and one man only.”

“Oh my god, Em. Did you have these shipped all the way from Georgia?” Tobin asks with shock. She knew her friend has an extravagant streak when it comes to food and particularly when it comes to barbecue, but having two suckling pigs shipped across the country for one holiday dinner is a lot more than Tobin imagined when she gave Emily the number of a butcher she knows in LA. 

“You’re damn right I did! I’m nothing if not loyal.” she responds with a grin and the two just laugh as they walk into the garage ‒ Tobin’s lab of sorts. 

Tobin already has a table set up for butchering with knives and seasoning in place as well as the smoker burning at 225 degrees. When they lay the pigs down on the table, they unwrap the thick plastic bags and just gaze for a few seconds ‒ both seeming to compartmentalize the job they're about to do and trying to piece together the puzzle of these pigs without touching it. She realized that it’s probably a good idea to do most of the meat handling outside since she knows that Boots would go absolutely bonkers if they tried to cook inside. 

Then, Tobin wordlessly brings a box of black gloves over for Emily to grab a pair before covering her own hands. Right before Emily grabs a knife, Tobin walks over to where she has a large sound system set up and turns on some classic, hard rock and roll. It seems to fit the mood. 

With a knowing smirk, she grabs her own knife and gets to work. 

~~~

“Excuse me!” Tobin shouts, trying to be heard over the wall of noise from all of their guests talking amongst themselves. When her first attempt doesn’t seem to work, she grabs her champagne glass and a butter knife to clink together. “Um, excuse me!” she tries again, but to no avail. 

Thankfully, she’s standing next to Sydney Leroux who’s drunk on wine and has no problem letting out a very loud, “HEY EVERYONE! LISTEN UP!”, which effectively brings everyone’s attention onto Tobin. (Though, Sydney doesn’t need to be drunk to let her voice be heard). 

“Thanks, Syd.” Tobin says with a small blush. Some people come in from the front yard as well as the backyard to hear what’s about to be said. “So I hope y’all saw in our invite this year, but we gotta shut this down in like an hour. That’s why we’re hosting this shindig at an earlier time this year.” she explains, receiving some understanding nods from a few people that she honestly has never seen before in her life, but welcomes nonetheless. “But I just wanted to take a moment and thank you guys for coming over and spreading the festive love!” With that, a round of applause and cheers begin to erupt amongst everyone who’s an earshot away and those who might not have any idea why there’s applause but go along with it anyway. 

“And please feel free to continue spreading the love by taking home any of the lovely treats that have been brought today!” Christen adds as she slides next to Tobin.

Tobin brings an arm around her fiancé’s shoulders when she feels the slender arm wrap around her waist. “Seriously guys. We mean it.” she says urgingly with a happy but very persistent, borderline _begging_ sort of smile. “Please take as much of the food as you can fit in your pockets. We honestly don’t have the storage space and we’re never able to finish all of it. Please take anything.” 

Guests slowly start to trickle out during the last hour of the party and, much to Tobin and Christen’s pleasure, many of the appetizers and desserts are successfully taken out of their hands this year around. With only their families left, Christen suggests that everyone take a nice family stroll around the neighborhood and out to a particular lookout spot that’s near the house (partly to try and get everyone’s hunger back up for their feast of a dinner and mostly to let Tobin stay and give her some time to get this feast of a dinner ready without peaking eyes or Boots constantly trying to get at the food.)

“ _Thank you, love_ ” Tobin whispers to Christen once her suggestion (which, knowing Christen, came out as more of a demand than anything else), had been made. Christen just gives a knowing wink before planting a short, tender kiss to Tobin’s cheek and shuffling out of the house with Boots’ leash and the rest of the two families. 

“So Mo,” Cody starts as the group walk up the slight incline of the street to the lookout. “Have you guys started wedding planning yet?”

Christen groans, not even wanting to think about that next hectic project before this current holiday season is even over. Thankfully, Channing seems to agree and comes to her rescue. 

“Dad! They’ve only been engaged for four months. Let her relax a bit with her fiancé.” she says, earning her a thankful glance from Christen. 

“Technically three and a half if we start from when the ring actually made it on Tobs’ finger.” Tobin’s brother, Jeff, adds in, leading both families to burst out in laughter as Christen blushes profusely. 

_So much dietary fiber consumption…_ she remembers with a grimace. _So much Poo-Pourri spray…_

Perry, also coming to Christen’s rescue, gives a dispiriting slap to her brother’s arm before turning to look at Christen and changing the subject. “I know Tobin might not be much of a help with much when it comes to the wedding, but I know she’ll have some sort of opinion when it comes to the food.”

“Oh I’m betting on it.” Christen replies with a light laugh. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of right now, it’s that we’ll probably have the best cuisine on the table for everybody.”

“And another thing you’re sure of is that I’m going to be your maid of honor, right?” Tyler presses, looking at Christen far too seriously for how far away they are from even thinking about the ceremony and planning. 

Looking back and forth from Tyler to Channing, Christen remains silent with a mischievous grin. She shrugs, making both of her sisters gasp in (fake?) shock. The older family members just laugh at the sisterly antics while they continue marching along the street.

Before they know it, the group reaches the lookout with awes and admiration. They hit it at the perfect time when the sun is just high enough that it illuminates the sky and the tapering clouds but it’s not blinding. Warm, orange hues radiate from the horizon, reflecting against the soft clouds above as it fades to the lightest remaining blue of the atmosphere, and just looking at the spectacular view already feels like a Christmas from the heavens. 

~~~

By the time the group makes it back to the house, the air inside smells like grandma’s cooking, Christmas, and love all combined and everyone’s stomachs are empty enough to be able to chow down on some no-doubt fantastic food. 

When they walk inside, Tobin is just taking off her picasso-looking splattered apron and she looks up with the widest smile. 

“Hey guy!” she greets, walking over to give her customary hello kiss to Christen before slipping a tired arm around the woman’s waist. “How was the sunset? Mom, you thinkin about movin out here, huh?” 

Cindy just chuckles with a smile that’s as wide as her daughters. “Oh, it was lovely.” she says simply. Tobin picks up on this diplomatic response as she sends a wink to her mother letting her know that she’s just teasing. 

“LA sunsets… just can’t beat em.” Cody comments. 

“Well you guys came just in time cause dinner’s hot and ready to be eaten.” Tobin informs, eliciting some upbeat responses. 

The families all flow into the dining area and, true to Tobin’s word, a delicious looking spread is covering almost every surface of the large table. There are deviled eggs and squash salad and spinach tartlets and roasted carrots and creamy mashed potatoes and apple-walnut stuffing and twice-baked sweet potatoes and a green bean casserole and potato gratin and even more plates of food all scattered around the tabletop. Tobin really outdid herself with, not only the amount of food prepared (the table literally looks like it’s about to collapse from the weight) but how expertly they’re all made if the mouthwatering smells and rising streams of steam are anything to go by.

And the big, show-stopping dish placed dead (pun intended) center on the table is an entire smoked pig surrounded by already shredded pieces of pork (which is why Tobin needed to smoke two pigs). Also true to Tobin’s word, it looks to be the only meat dish on the menu, which Christen is thankful for as her compassionate eyes gaze upon this entire animal carcass sitting on the table. She doesn’t dwell on it though because literally everything else looks so delectable that for today, she can forgive and forget. 

“Wow…” Stacy mutters with complete amazement. “Why haven’t we all had a proper Christmas dinner sooner?” 

The group all sit themselves down at the table with big eager smiles (and maybe a little drool) on their faces and after a moment of prayer, they all dig into the fantastic feast before them.

“Really good pig, Tobs.” her father, Jeff, praises. 

“Just like how you taught me.” she returns with a grateful expression, suitable for the grateful atmosphere of the holidays. 

“How’d Christen feel about the pigs?” Katie asks.

Tobin turns her head to Christen beside her and they exchange knowing looks and teasing smiles. 

“Let’s just be thankful that she got on board eventually.” Tobin responds with a light laugh. 

“Well it’s excellent nonetheless.” Stacey comments, earning a few other notes of agreement from the others. 

They all finish at around the same time and an impressive amount of the food winds of getting eaten, especially considering that they had already nibbled on appetizers during the afternoon party. 

The only item that remains is that whole smoked pig laying in the center spotlight. The pieces of pork had been quickly eaten up but no one dared try to rip into the whole animal on the platter. The only one who even felt confident or qualified to cut into the pig is Tobin and a very compelling person by the name of Christen Press had discreetly whispered a threat or two in order to prevent having to see the pig get ripped apart before her eyes ( _“You told me you wouldn’t butcher anything inside this house and I’m not afraid of skipping any possible Christmas orgasms if you so much as bring a butter knife to that pig.”_ )

Needless to say, the pig remained untouched (probably to be gradually given to Boots for the next few months) and Tobin actually sheepishly refused to even carry it back to the kitchen, citing the lie that her arms were tired from cooking. Christen just gave her a smirk and a knowing wink for generously going the extra mile. 

All in the jolly spirit of Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by good ol' xmas, obviously. my fam isnt huge on xmas in comparison to some, but i wanted to have a festive chap out for yall
> 
> btw, i do read all ur comments and they always bring warmth to my heart and i love all yall (ive never been good at receiving compliments so i dont respond hehe but i just want yall to know that ur words bring me so much joy <3)
> 
> happy holidays :)


	9. Chicken Noodle Soup

“Oh my god, this is not gonna end well…” Tobin mutters to herself as she continues to prep the frier for another batch of shrimp. Despite these words, there’s a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes as she watches these completely psychopathic lunatics venture down the path of stupidity. 

“If I’m not mistaken, Tobs, you claimed you did this exact same thing _successfully_ when you were working at that crusty sushi place in D.C.” Lindsey notes, loosening up the wrist of her knife-bearing hand. 

Emily grabs a smaller paring knife from the magnet attached to the truck wall. “Yeah, what did you call it? ‘The Spin-nd-Stab Challenge?” She suddenly flips the knife into the air and they all watch with hopeful eyes as it makes its descent back down towards the precisely placed tomato on the cutting board. But just as the last ten or so attempts before, the blade misses the awaiting red flesh of the fruit (yes, _fruit_ ) and the handle bounces off the countertop. With the clanking noise, the knife flies concerningly closer to Emily’s leg before she reflexively shifts away to remain uncut. 

“ ‘Spin-nd-Stab’ was a product of me being bored and finishing prep way faster than what my co-workers expected.” Tobin explains with a slight grin at those nostalgic memories. The objective of the challenge is to flip the knife into the air and have it perfectly land standing vertically on the cutting board and through the desired ingredient. 

She turns her head for a second to look upon these rascals. With a sigh of equal parts disappointment and relief, Tobin says, “You guys are being a bad influence. I’m about as close to abolishing these extended lunch breaks as that knife was to slicing you up.”

“Bad influence?!” Emily scoffs as she bends down to pick up the kitchen weapon. “Do you think we’re being a bad influence, Rose?”

Their newest recruit, the insanely talented Rose Lavelle that Lindsey is supposed to be training, gives a bit of an uncomfortable glance from Tobin to Emily. Even though it was her first day on the job after an anticipation-filled hiring process, she fit right in, instantly clicking with the other members of the team both as a chef in the kitchen and a friend outside the kitchen. 

“Ummm…” 

“Rose, don’t answer that.” Lindsey says to rescue her. “Everyone knows we’re being a bad influence. Just accept it Em.”

“Pfft, whatever.” Emily mutters as she skillfully flips the small knife in the air and lets the handle fall back securely into her palm. 

With everything somewhat prepped, Tobin turns to face the three. “Ya’know, your cooking efficiency is gonna take a big hit when that knife impales your hand, bud.”

“ _Ya’know_ , friends are supposed to lift each other up, not tear each other down, _bud_.” Emily teases back. “Where’s the encouragement?”

“Hey, I’ve seen how this plays out and it ends with a lot of blood that I’m not gonna be responsible for cleaning.”

Emily’s gotten very good at riling Tobin up. This skill almost matches the skill she has in the kitchen. Needless the say, over the years of their friendship, her ability to pull Tobin into her shenanigans has been expertly refined. 

She takes this as an additional challenge. 

“Plus, how would you know that’s how this’ll end if you were able to complete the challenge, huh Tobs?” Emily starts, a mischievous curl to her lips. 

“No, no, no Son. That’s not gonna work-”

“I’m just sayin’! It’s not a fact it’s a claim.” Emily continues. “No one was there to witness this incredible feat of chef mastery so as far as I’m concerned, you could be full-ass lying.”

Tobin knows exactly what Emily’s doing. She’s all too familiar with this game that the two frequently participate in. She knows she has the ability to brush it off and move on. 

But Rose and Lindsey are looking so expectantly ‒ so much wonder in their eyes like they’ve discovered a mythical creature. And yeah, Tobin’s got a bit of ego. She’s human. And every successful chef needs a bit of ego to climb up the ranks. 

It’s healthy to know your worth. 

With a narrowing of her eyes as silent acceptance of what’s being proposed, she moves towards one of the drawers and opens it to grab her own, trusty paring knife (God knows she wouldn’t attempt anything like this with her favorite caidao). She unsheathes it to reveal its shiny, sharpened blade before looking down at the awaiting tomato sitting innocently on the cutting board. 

Tobin looks to her friends as they apprehensively back away, but nonetheless watch with excited, encouraging eyes. She lets out a quick, focused exhale, bending her legs slightly to assume a more stable stance that will surely factor into her success. She loosens her wrist to familiarize herself with the weight of the knife. 

A pause of anticipating silence. 

Just as she flicks her wrist up and releases her grasp-

“Excuse me? I’m ready to order.”

A loud, blood-curdling yell emits from the truck.

~~~

“This is dumb.” Tobin whines, letting her head fall harshly against the couch armrest. 

“ _Dumb_ ?” Christen stands over Tobin’s body, eyes flicking down at the very noticeable white bandage that’s wrapped around almost the entirety of Tobin’s thigh. “You decide to play knife games with your friends and gash open your leg and you think taking pain medications is ‘ _dumb_ ’?”

Tobin clenches her jaw as she swallows uncomfortably under the gaze of her peeved (but loving) fiance. 

There’s not much she can say in response, at least without the wound on her leg being the only damage she has to worry about. 

“They just make me feel so groggy and tired all the time.” she complains quietly as she shyly plays with the edge of the bandage. Boots positions herself in the squeezed space between her body and the back of the couch and the pup gives a comforting lick to Tobin’s hand. “And it’s not like I’ve got a boot or something. I can still do stuff…” she mutters. 

Christen softens a bit, knowing how miserable Tobin’s going to be without getting to work at the truck or do much physical movement. When Lindsey’s apprehensive voice called her to come to get Tobin from the hospital, Christen rushed to get to her fiance as fast as possible. Her initial thoughts were “ _how bad is it_ ?” and “ _what happened?_ ”. Her first question was answered after squeamishly seeing twelve stitches running up Tobin’s thigh. It looked like Tobin had gotten mauled by a bear claw or something. 

Her second question was answered and boy did that erase almost any amount of sympathy she had. 

_Spin-nd-Stab?! Really?!_

Right now, she tries to continue channeling that level of sternness as she walks over to where Tobin’s pain medication is.

“I know, babes. But you don’t wanna stretch the skin or get your blood pressure up cause it could rip a stitch.” She uncaps a couple of the pill bottles as she carefully reads through the prescription instructions for the millionth time. 

As Christen walks back over to the couch, two little pills and a tall glass of water in hand, she can’t help but chuckle at the prominent pout resting on Tobin’s face ‒ similar to that of a reluctant three-year-old (not too far off). 

“C’mon, Tobs.” she says, lightly nudging the woman with her knee to get her to sit up. “I got a media session I gotta get to.”

Tobin drags herself upwards and takes the pills and the water from Christen’s hands. As Christen sits down beside her, she mutters gruffly, “I’m capable of taking pills myself…”

The fallen look on Christen’s face makes her regret her words instantly. 

She quickly throws the little pills into her mouth and gulps down the water before placing the glass on the coffee table and turning herself fully to face her beautiful, loving, amazing, considerate fiance. Guilt rises through Tobin’s esophagus as she looks upon sorrow-filled green eyes and a tight-lipped half of a smile that her own grumpy attitude is solely responsible for. 

Without a second thought, she leans in and tries her damn hardest to kiss away that blue downcast on Christen’s face ‒ tries to reverse what her harmful words had done. 

“I love you,” she affirms, wanting to make sure that point is the only thing that crosses their minds right now. “I’m sorry I’m being a grouch. I know you’re just taking care of me and I love you for it.”

Thankfully, a smile forms on Christen’s lips, replacing the previously retracted mood with familiar pearly whites. She leans in for another kiss. And another. And another. Before a notification bell on her phone reminds the two of the events for the day. And they postpone their love-fest for the time being. 

“Have fun at media. Don’t show off your amazing good looks too much. Gotta save some hope for the rest of us.” Tobin comments playfully with a wink. 

A laugh bubbles out of Christen’s throat before she gives one last goodbye kiss and stands to collect her things. 

Tobin watches as she walks to the front door. “Remember to take another round of your meds in three hours.” Christen reminds as she slings her bag over her shoulder. Just as she’s about to leave with the door open wide, she turns back to Tobin’s place on the couch. “Take it easy, love. I’m serious.” Tobin gives a small smile and a reluctant, accepting nod and with a small wave, Christen is out the door. 

~~~

Tobin feels like absolute crap. 

She feels like someone reached into her body with Edward’s sissorhands and removed her soul. 

Or maybe her soul just tumbled out through the large slash in her leg. 

“I hate these pain meds.” she mutters with the same amount of energy as a corpse. Boots raises her head with alertness from where it’s been resting on Tobin’s unbandaged thigh. 

Tobin feels like a caged animal. She’s so bored ‒ deprived of any substantial stimulation to keep her occupied. But at the same time, she has no energy to move her body and actually do anything more than lay on the couch or the bed or the lawn chair in the backyard. She feels like she could explode at any minute and her stitches wouldn’t stand a chance to keep her contained. 

She usually avoids any sort of pain medication for this particular reason, she’s never had the best reactions to even the mildest over-the-counter medication. Her pain tolerance is pretty high ‒ it kind of has to be in her field of work. Cuts, scrapes, and flesh wounds are nothing new, as evident by the countless number of scars on her skin that serve as reminders. They’ve typically never been something more than what can be handled by some Neosporin and a couple of bandages. 

But then again, she’s typically been good at avoiding blades from reaching so deeply into her flesh. Typically. 

Right now though, she doesn’t know if the pain of the wound would really be worse than how she’s feeling with whatever western medical treatment the doctor prescribed her. She’s nauseous and lethargic and feels like her body doesn’t have any blood flow and every time she so much as lifts her head, the room spins like a neverending amusement park ride. 

Per Christen’s insistence, she’s taken her second round of pain meds and for the past few hours, she’s been trapped in the treacherous cycle of sleeping, waking up, getting too dizzy to do anything, and then falling back to sleep. 

The sound of the front door unlocking and swinging open is barely noticeable in her medication-induced haze. She can mentally recognize the sound of Christen coming in and putting her things down and walking over to her, but her body barely allows her to react to any of it past peaking her eyes a centimeter open. 

“Aww, how’re you feeling, baby?” Christen coos, bending down to run her fingertips down the pale, sweat-droplet-covered skin of Tobin’s hairline. 

“Hmmm…” Tobin groans because her brain can’t muster up the ability to think up or say any actual words right now. A loud grumble of Tobin’s stomach interrupts the quiet moment. 

“Have you eaten anything other than half of that bagel from this morning?”

Tobin shifts her eyes to the ground where Christen sees a half-empty sleeve of saltine crackers that have toppled out of the box. They had been retrieved in the only minute of the day where Tobin could actually stand up and it was damn near an impossible journey as she went and grabbed them from the cupboard, having to hold only any and all pieces of furniture on the way to and from to keep her balance. 

Christen sighs sympathetically. She knows how tough injury recovery can be, of any scale. “I’ll make you some chicken noodle soup, how about that?”

She’s confused when a slight smile forms on Tobin’s face until the woman mutters, “No… canned…”

Luckily, she’s able to decipher this minimal code and assume what Tobin means is that they don’t have any of those easy, pre-made, fool-proof cans of chicken noodle in their cupboard. Now that she thinks about it, she’s not surprised, considering how Tobin will almost always choose to make things from scratch. 

“Hmmm…:” Christen ponders what she should do in this situation. The first thing she thinks of is to order it and have some delivered, but she honestly can’t think of any restaurant near them that serves something as simple as a good ol’ bowl of chicken noodle soup. She could run to the store to get a can but as her eyes connect back down to Tobin’s, something is silently being communicated through those deep, hazel eyes. 

It’s something playful, or as playful as someone with absolutely zero energy can cultivate. 

It’s a challenge. 

And how could Christen back down from a challenge when an adorable sickly, smirk appears on her favorite pair of lips.

~~~

Tobin can immediately tell when Christen’s dropped something (again) when she hears the excited panting and paws of Boots afterward. With a light laugh, she slowly peeks over the back of the couch to see how her chef is doing with the recipe. 

“Do you need me to explain anything?” she croaks.

Christen ‒ looking frazzled with curls falling out of her messy bun ‒ jolts her head up and offers the least persuasive gleam of confidence. 

“Nah, I got. Just like you said, right? Chop everything up, throw it in the broth, and presto!”

“It’s just… Well, I’m not complaining or anything but it’s been like half an hour…” Tobin croaks out, with a soft, but exhaustion-cause grit to her voice. “And I’m really fine with my saltines.”

A loud pop from the frying pan behind her makes Christen jump with surprise, and Tobin can’t help my chuckle once more. Christen quickly turns around to reduce the heat of the stovetop and when she turns back to face Tobin, that same determined (but obviously flustered) expression remains on her face. 

“You need some nice soothing soup to go with your saltines. It’s a crime if you don’t match those two together. They’re soulmates. Like us.”

Tobin’s heart flutters because how can this woman be stressing herself out by trying to make her some chicken noodle soup from the raw materials they luckily had on hand and at the same time spew wonderfully romantic lines like it's nothing.

 _I love this woman_ is the last thing Tobin remembers thinking before her stuffy mind overcomes her tired body as she leans back and lights out.

~~~

The smell wakes her up first. The wonderfully familiar and nostolgic scent of chicken broth flows into her nose and pleasantly brings her brain out of its much-needed slumber. As Tobin slowly peels her eyes open, she gazes upon the silhouette of Christen, sitting at the other end of the couch with Tobin’s legs resting on her legs. Tobin takes the precious moment to look at her beautiful fiance, how the backlight outlines the woman’s smooth skin and illuminates her green eyes behind round, reading glasses. 

As if she has a sixth sense, Christen turns to see that Tobin’s awake and smiles brightly. She puts her book down on the side table before turning back forward. A healing hand raises to gently rub Tobin’s calf as she softly asks, “How’re you feeling, sleeping beauty?”

“Hmmm… good since you’re here with me.” Tobin mutters back, with a grin. 

A gracious little smile creeps on Christen’s face and it just feels wrong if she doesn’t lean down and give her half-coherent fiance a kiss. Or two. Or three. 

“Feel good enough to eat some chicken noodle soup?” Christen asks against Tobin’s lips. 

The brightness that sparks into Tobin’s eyes silently conveys her answer. 

With one last kiss, Christen shifts Tobin’s legs off of her and slides off the couch towards the kitchen. She returns with a hefty bowl of soup ‒ stripes of steam whispering up from its surface. Tobin gingerly sits up, her body a bit creaky from laying down basically all day, but she doesn’t feel nearly as shitty as she had. Instead of handing her the bowl, Christen sits beside her and dips a spoon in the liquid herself. Tobin gets the hint as Christen brings a spoonful of broth with a chunk of carrot and a little tear of chicken toward her mouth. 

“Here comes the airplane” Christen sing-songs with a playful smile. She opens wide, and it's the millisecond before the spoon’s contents hit her mouth where a slight feeling of hesitancy reaches her brain ‒ all of Christen’s failed kitchen endeavors flashing in her memories. 

But as the spoon reaches the hanger, she closes her mouth and allows the homemade chicken noodle soup to touch her taste buds. 

A pause. 

Christen removes the spoon from Tobin’s mouth with wide, curious (hopeful) eyes. 

And she watches carefully as Tobin chews excruciatingly slow and her brain tries to gauge the woman’s reaction as best she can. 

Christen watches Tobin swallow without expression and she remains in the dark about how well (or poorly) received her soup is. 

“Chris…” Tobin starts, the nickname falling from her lips like one falls against a pillow after a long, hard workday. 

“Mmm-hmm?” 

Tobin’s expressionless face gradually morphs into a huge, charismatic grin ‒ the classic Tobin Heath smile ‒ with every tooth on display. 

“This is the most fantastic chicken noodle soup I have ever tasted.” she declares, no doubt in her words to be found. 

Christen’s in disbelief as a blush grows on her face. _No… she’s joking… she has to say that cause we’re engaged and she doesn’t want me to feel bad…_

“You're lying.”

“No, I’m not”

“Just tell me the truth. I can take it” Christen insists. 

“I AM telling the truth, babe!” Tobin takes the bowl from Christen’s hands and spoons another taste into her mouth. She eats and chews and swallows like she’s a food critic analyzing the main entree of the night. 

But there’s no repulsive reaction, no looks of disgust hidden beneath the surface of Tobin’s face. 

Just a wholesome, happy smile. 

“How’d you do this?” she questions, barely letting the words out as she really ramps up and starts shoveling spoonful after spoonful of the soup into her mouth. 

Christen laughs as some of the broth splashes over the edge of the bowl with how viciously Tobin’s feeding herself. “I just followed the directions from your recipe index.” she answers simply, her heart about to burst with how joyful and upbeat Tobin looks eating something that _she_ made (and of course there’s a sense of pride that somehow, finally, she hasn’t made a completely inedible meal). 

“There’s no way.” Tobin states, a bit of broth and spit spewing from her overflowing mouth as she speaks. “I’ve made my chicken noodle recipe plenty of times to know that it’s good, but it’s nowhere near _this_ good.”

And Christen just casually shrugs her shoulders because she really did just follow what Tobin had written down on the index card of the recipe. 

Well… 

“Sorta…”

“What do you mean ‘sorta’?”

Christen grabs ahold of the spoon, now very curious herself about the level of greatness that Tobin seems to think this soup has reached. She spoons herself a little and-

_Wow_

_I mean WOW_

She doesn’t even believe it herself. 

“I mean… I followed your directions, but I think I mixed up some of the spices you had written for it.” she explains, now feeding herself from the bowl that was supposed to be for her sick fiance. 

Tobin laughs because _of course_ Christen mixed up something. Usually, it leads to a disaster of some kind but in this instance, it's a very welcomed mix-up. 

“You are truly amazing, baby.” Tobin whispers as she leans in to kiss broth-covered lips. 

They continue eating the bowl (and two more servings) of the heavenly soup, passing the spoon back and forth and talking softly to one another. Occasionally they'll give Boots a torn piece of chicken and laugh when the pitbull licks her chops like she too recognizes how out-of-this-world the flavor is. 

“Did you make note of what you mixed up?” Tobin asks with the fourth bowl of chicken noodle soup and the last sleeve of saltines finished. 

“Notes? Babe, I didn’t even taste the soup before I fed it to you cause I was afraid it was gonna be trash.”

Tobin laughs again and something inside of her is almost content with that ‒ with being the only person on the face of the earth and probably the rest of time to be blessed with Christen’s accidentally exquisite chicken noodle soup. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this oneshot is motivated by uswnt6, who graciously supplied the idea of a chicken noodle soup story. also i have a lot more free time these days so i realized that if i have a fantastic prompt and i have the time, i don't really have an excuse not to write somethin up. its been a while and im a bit rusty, but here ya go! 
> 
> stay safe my friends, we're still in this together. and maybe treat urself to some good ol' chicken noodle soup sometime. <3


End file.
